Out of the Shadows
by Personality Test
Summary: Ten strangers cross paths in an inevitable turn of events; is their meeting only by chance, or is it the start of something greater than every one of them? Don't forget - all's fair in love and war. AU.
1. Dreamland Aftertaste

**Special A/N: I prefer to do my A/Ns after the story, but this is a special case. This is the first time I'm able to write something that isn't an one-shot! This is an AU fic - as in, no eye powers, and I also made up some character relations to keep them all together...so to speak. I don't know if I made sure to clarify later on, but in this fic everyone's ages are elevated by 7 years (For height difference's sake, Mary is 21). None of the actual supernatural stuff ever happened, and none of them died, so the kids went on their everyday life and grew up, had careers of their own, etc. Their personalities may differ, because remember this time Ayano is not there to influence every one of them anymore. We're good? We're good.**

**Special mention goes to SeraSearaSpin, the awesome, dedicated, hardworking and generally _super_ _awesome_ beta-reader who stuck with me through every ups and downs since I started on this little project. Thank you so much xD**

**Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy!**

* * *

Chapter 1- Pilot. Dreamland Aftertaste.

.

.

.

_Hello._

_My name is Azami. And yours is?_

_Ah, my apologies. It is a habit I still cling on to after so many years, after all – of course I know that a mere journal cannot answer my question. Tsukihiko keeps telling me some people might interpret it to be offensive, but few have so far. Well, some time later they do tell me that my words have a bossy feel to them, so I suppose he is right after all._

_I must be boring you with such inanities. My main objective in writing this journal is…at first, Tsukihiko thought I should. He says I should word it out in writing, because there are some peculiarities he cannot fathom whenever I speak up. I was annoyed at his ostensibly offensive assumptions, but to be honest, I have also noticed something strange about myself. My interests are occasionally divided. There are times when I feel angry this minute, and elated the next. Once or twice, I have briefly wondered if my name was even 'Azami'._

_And so, this is my record – what I know, what I can remember, what entered my mind of its own volition. They say that the mind of every person is an indecipherable mystery, yet I feel my own mental state can no longer be called something as mundane 'mystery'._

_No, if I were to phrase it, it should be called -_

* * *

August 14th, 20xx.-2

The door creaked open.

Kano flinched for a fraction of a second; normally, he wouldn't even notice this kind of sound, but in the dead of night he might as well have fired a cannon. The sound echoed down the dimly lit halls, bound to wake up anyone who wasn't in a deep sleep. Well, he would just have to make this quick, then.

"Psst, Shuuya!"

"N-Nee-chan!" He nearly jumped up in surprise – not that Kano would ever admit it to anyone. They would never let him live it down if they knew Ayano-nee actually managed to spook him for once. Granted, he had spooked her an awful lot of times, every time nearly making her jump out of her skin and this was only her way of exacting revenge; but either way, Ene would tease him about it for the rest of her life, and not to mention that guy, too… "You gave me a fright, Nee-chan. Also, I told you not to call me that anymore, remember?"

"Sorry, Kano!" As if only remembering, she quickly added, "I didn't mean to scare you…"

Kano wisely left out the fact that he had nearly scared her to death in multiple occasions, most of which were intentional and inherently pretty funny – no point in giving her more ammunition. "So, what do you want to talk about, Nee-chan?"

Immediately, the cheerful, albeit embarrassed expression drained from her face. Under the dim white light, amidst the clean and orderly and shadowed kitchen, his sister somehow resembled a specter, constantly and unfailingly haunting those who were unfortunate enough to have memorized her form – including him. Somehow, that thought sent chills down his back…

"We need to talk," said his sister in a completely serious tone, devoid of her former adorable smile. Kano realized with a start that she really did look like a specter, and it scared him to no end.

"…Nee-chan…?"

"It's about our plans. _The Zugzwang Gambit_."

* * *

August 14th, 20xx.

"Hello, it's Ene. Can you hear me, Ayano?" The girl's cheerful - albeit a little loud - voice filtered through the speaker, making Ayano flinch for a second.

"Yes, Ene. What is it?"

"Do you remember what tomorrow is?" Ene asked in hushed whispers, her voice full of the kind of unbridled glee that promised trouble. "Come on, you can't tell me you don't remember! _That guy_ might, but surely you haven't forgotten, have you, Ayano~?" She could see Ene's wide grin as she spoke, and Ayano couldn't help feel the heat reddening her cheeks. After all, how could she forget what tomorrow was?

"Yes, I remember," she admitted with a little embarrassment, still taking care to whisper into the phone so as not to wake up the children. Ayano had spent the better half of today trying to coax some of the more energetic kids to sleep - honestly, these kids reminded her of Shuuya when he had been their age, although he had been far more subdued at the beginning and only started to open up to her a few years after he was adopted. Speaking of Shuuya, she hoped he was doing fine on his assignment…

"Hello! Earth to Anniversary Girl!" Ene hollered through the phone, and her voice immediately snapped Ayano out of her stupor. "As I was saying, aren't you the _slightest_ bit curious about what he's planning to do for your second anniversary?"

"A-A little bit…" she said sheepishly - as usual, Ene was able to see right through her. That girl seemed to know everything about what Ayano herself felt, sometimes. "But I'm sure he wants to keep it a surprise…"

Ene outright laughed.

"Surprise? Please, sweetie, I'm doing you a favor. If I left Shintaro to his own devices, he would stutter through it five minutes before the whole deal and you'd have no time to either pack your bags or ask the principal of your school for a week's worth of days off. Honestly, why that guy is called a genius, I'll never know."

"W-wait, pack my bags? Ask for a vacation? What do you mean...?" Even as she asked a barrage of questions, Ayano could already understand a bit of what was going on. Was Shintaro planning to take them somewhere for their anniversary, perhaps?

"Get this!" Ene immediately answered, eager to provide more information. "All of us are going to France for your anniversary, and believe me, we won't take no for an answer. A week in France - doesn't it sound wonderful? And also…"

France? Really? Shintaro would do that?

That was so sweet and thoughtful of him. Ayano didn't bother to hide her wide smile - Shintaro was not as cold as everyone else thought, after all. He took care of her; he did take some time off from work to come home for dinner once in a while, and he worked hard with her best interests at heart. The Shintaro back then was the type to read a textbook only once in his life, and so Ayano knew firsthand - and greatly appreciate - his efforts now; that was why she never complained when he was late for dinner for days on end, despite Shuuya's criticism.

And now he was taking her to France - Shintaro really was thoughtful.

"The flight is tomorrow at 2 P.M, so don't forget, okay?" Ene continued her chatter. "Well, old man Kenjirou said he wouldn't be there to see us off, but considering he was the one to buy us those tickets I wouldn't expect -" Her voice, no matter how loud, was quickly drowned out by the wailing of a child in the corner, in turn prompting some of the other kids in the vicinity to wake up and start crying.

"Oh, dear,..." Ayano muttered. She hadn't hear what Ene was saying, but it was fine - the only thing she needed was that she had a flight to board come tomorrow. "I'll call you back, okay? See you tomorrow, Ene!"

"Goodbye," the other girl's static-laden voice told her, before even that voice was drowned out by the sobbing and wailing of the children.

* * *

"I can't believe this!" Momo yelled in exasperation. "You agreed! You even gave me your nerd word, and now you're telling me you have to back out?"

Her assistant winced slightly and cowered in his seat. Momo, however, paid no attention to this and continued yelling obscenities at her deadbeat brother, the shut-in who couldn't even walk ten feet out of his room for fear of losing intel on the monitoring of his latest project – whatever it was called.

For god's sake, his project wasn't even authorized, and Shintaro was supposed to be on an extended leave concerning his increasing hostility towards his coworkers, and she didn't for one second understand why he was locking himself in his goddamned room. _Again_.

"What the hell is a nerd word!? And I'm telling you..." Shintaro's annoyed voice, raspy from long periods of disuse, filtered through the receiver. "I'm working on «Actor»! If I leave her for a second, she might experience abnormalities in her system and shut down completely. Two years of my life will have gone down the drain – haven't I explained this to you before?"

"Yeah, right." She rolled her eyes. "Did you think I wouldn't ask Ene about it? The «Actor» project was finished, tested and scrapped approximately three weeks ago – now, would you look at that? No excuses, brother; you're going with us. Pack your bags." Just as she said it, Ene got off her phone call with Ayano and gave Momo a thumbs-up, looking positively diabolical.

Ene had come to her studio right this morning, sporting four tickets to France with a grin on her face. She'd said that this was a treat from Kenjirou for an excellent job on their latest project - whatever it was - and the old man had suggested that they went there for Shintaro and Ayano's anniversary.

It was rather strange for him to throw her idiotic brother a bone, though; as far as Momo remembered, Kenjirou had all the predatory instincts of an overprotective dad on the warpath, so it was pretty uncharacteristic of him to offer this trip so generously.

Still, a free trip was a free trip, and since Momo needed time away from her hectic schedule anyway, she would be damned if her brother's appalling lack of common sense and antisocial tendencies took her away from her much-needed vacation. Oh, and his second anniversary, too.

"No!" Shintaro forcefully refused. "You honestly think you can drag me to a place I haven't heard of – " Momo nearly spit out her drink. It was _Paris, France_, and he said he'd never heard of it? "…and shut myself up there for two weeks? I'm not eighteen anymore, Momo. I'm. Staying. Find your travel companion somewhere else."

"Okay." Momo's voice suddenly turned cheerful, but if nothing else Shintaro was even more on guard. Good – he should be. "I'll ask _Ayano_, then."

Ah, Ayano. She had hoped that she wouldn't have to use the trump card, but it looked like her dorky brother didn't fear Ene's wrath anymore. Ayano, though, would always throw a wrench in his shut-in ways. She was the one who got Shintaro to come out of his room now and then, something no one else could ever achieve, even Ene and her – ah, destructive – methods.

He would have no choice then, since he wasn't comfortable letting Ayano out of his sights and too prideful (read: _awkward_) to act like he actually cared about her like any other respectable fiancé.

After a really long pause, her brother finally replied with a notably more shaken voice. "Aya –"

"Yes, Ayano," she confirmed triumphantly. "She'd love to, you know, since your anniversary is coming up and all. And if she goes, you can't help but come as well, especially when you're running out of time to prepare a halfway decent anniversary dinner and there's a far better option at hand."

"I –" Shintaro began.

"Now, now, brother, let's stop for a moment and think," Momo quickly interrupted. Ene, the twin-tailed girl sitting beside her, gave a nod of approval as her hands flew with lightning speed on the keys, pulling up Shintaro's records one after another. "You got all the attention when we were kids because you were smart, not downright asinine. Your anniversary is tomorrow. You haven't made any calls – don't start, Ene did a run on your party guy."

That effectively shut her brother up and Ene nodded again, motioning for her to continue.

"And I bet «Actor», authorized research or no, is gonna take a lot of time to function – time you clearly don't have if you don't want Ayano's little brother to turn you into his personal dartboard. Am I right?"

Shintaro did a rather funny mix between a shriek and a stutter. "I – I – How –"

"Doesn't matter." Ene snatched the phone from her hand and put it on speaker. "You better come, Shintaro. There's some very interesting folders I can't wait to show Ayano, you know…"

"O-okay!" he shouted hastily as realization dawned. "I'll go, I'll go! I'll take Tono and pack my bags and everything!"

Wait, what the hell was he yammering about? Surely he couldn't think…

She didn't even have time to relish her newfound victory over her wimpy excuse of a brother. Momo locked eyes with Ene for a second, and she just knew that she heard right, even at the age of twenty-five her brother was still that stupid, and even Ayano would agree.

"Shintaro…" Ene warned in a low tone.

"Brother…" Momo added, just for kicks.

"That abomination stays," the twin-tailed girl finished, and she could swear she heard the sound of Shintaro's heart breaking to pieces through the static-laden phone.

"_Noooo!_"

* * *

"France!?" she screamed into the speaker. "_France_? I can't stand being around five people at a time and you want me to board an airplane to France?"

Snapping the tiny cell phone closed, she swiveled her posh leather chair around to face the other person. The bulky phone on the table rang urgently, but she immediately shut it off, nearly creating a crack on the glass table. The mountain of multi-colored files on the table wobbled slightly, but Kido took no notice.

Her assistant and niece, Hiyori, quivered lightly in her seat. "But Auntie –"

"Miss Kido!" she snapped back. "Don't call me Aunt at work. Now, about France…no, I'll talk to my father later. What are my appointments this morning?"

The nerve of that man, ushering her off to France to babysit of all things. Was he even aware that FBI was looking into his dirty work – the very work she always covered up for him? It nearly took all of Kido's time to patch up the damage, and the old man kept making decisions that were stupid to the point of unbelievable.

If she didn't know better, she would've thought he was insane – he should be, with his ramblings and ridiculous ambitions. Her poor older sister was away, safely tucked in a prestigious college for yet another degree, and Kido silently prayed that she would never hear of their father's blunders...the latest one of which was smacking her in the face.

No, he couldn't wait until the Federal investigation was over – she had to chaperone her niece and her friend on a field trip to France tomorrow.

Brilliant.

"Uh…" Hiyori fumbled with her touch screen. "Um, we were supposed to meet with the higher-ups today to present the libel suit."

"But?" Kido raised her eyebrows quizzically.

"But FBI called and said to clear our schedules pronto," the girl continued nervously. "And they said they would send someone over to talk -"

"That would be me."

The door clicked open, and in walked a blond just in his twenties, strutting about her office as if he owned it. He smirked at her, and all of a sudden Kido remembered that she had a gun in her bottom drawer and god could she _please_ knock that smirk off his damn face?

"Snap out of it, Auntie," Hiyori whispered in her ear, having noticed her murderous glare. "He's a Fed. Let's not kill him before he opens his mouth."

"He did open his mouth. That makes killing him perfectly legal." She hissed back.

"For the record, that's not how it works." In a blink of an eye, that guy was sitting on the comfy swivel chair opposite to her, rifling through a blue binder with a bored expression. She knocked it out of his hands with a crisp _slap_.

"Hey, now, that's rude." The guy complained childishly. "Be nice. I can have you arrested."

"What's rude is you barging in here and imposing on us for no reason." Kido snapped back. "Hiyori, call security -"

The sharp click of a gun and the bullet hole inches from her head stopped her dead in her tracks.

"No you don't," he smiled, his eyes narrowing dangerously. "Stand perfectly still, please. I have a lifetime of unfortunate reflexes, and one wrong move..._you're it_. And I'd appreciate it if the young lady doesn't move, either. My hand slips _quite_ often."

Hiyori's hand slackened, letting the tablet fall between her fingers. It hit the carpeted floor with a dull _thump_, but the only thing Kido could focus on was that silver-colored barrel pointed straight at her face.

Feds weren't supposed to do this. They didn't have a warrant. They were even less liable to pull the trigger - it was because of that reason that she was able to avoid them for so long. "You're an impostor."

"Am I?" The blond chuckled dryly. "I can tell you this, though: being a criminal has its perks. For example, I could shoot you dead right here, right now, and take your key card. I can hop to the fortieth floor and take another shot; and three hours later, everyone will think you killed your dad, your assistant and committed suicide. Brilliant, don't you think?"

"So, you've got a grudge against the old man?" Kido leaned forward and assumed her business facade. His harsh look and dissonant smile unnerved her to no end, but she persisted. "No surprise. He was always an asshole. I would've killed him myself if I could find out the password to his safe..._QB_." She muttered the last words, praying that he would not hear. Hiyori's eyes widened.

"What was that?" The blond raised an eyebrow.

"Ah, no, curses, the usual." Kido effortlessly lied. "Not something to be said in polite company. So, may I ask your name?"

In a corner of her eyes, she saw Hiyori crouch down and pick up her fallen tablet, away from the blond's guarded gaze. She got the signal.

"Hmm? Ah, yes. That was rather rude of me. I'm Shuuya Kano. Does the name ring a bell?"

"Hiyori?" Kido called. The girl squeaked in surprise and nearly dropped her tablet.

"S-Shuuya Kano..." Hiyori stuttered. "Uh, retired drug dealer, incarcerated for four years...currently on parole under special circumstances. The rest are blacked out...oh, it says here that he's convicted for one deal and suspected of roughly fifty others -"

"That's quite enough." Kano interrupted curtly. "Let's make this quick. I want revenge on your dear old dad, and I can clearly see that you would come with me over your dead body. That gives us a dilemma."

"That's a moot point, more like." Kido scoffed derisively. "He doesn't give a rat's ass about me. You're better off threatening his real heir -" She shut her mouth mid-sentence, but it was too late. Kano's eyes glinted like a cat's, and all of a sudden the barrel of a gun was aimed at her forehead again.

...This guy really needed to stop doing that, really.

"Oh, and who might that be?" He smiled and spoke in a friendly tone, but his eyes made it clear: answer or die. And Kido couldn't risk Hiyori's life, no matter how much she wanted to save her sister. If she died protecting her sister's identity, Hiyori would die, and there was no guarantee that he wouldn't find out later. If she told him, her sister would certainly die within a week. It was a dead end.

Then she had no choice but to stall for time. She'd go along with him and find a way to overpower him, his reaction speed and gun be damned. She would never put the two most important people in her life in harm's way, and Kano and his revenge could go rot in hell.

"...How do you feel about Paris?"

.

"Uh, I know this is kinda a weird question and all, but can I crash at your place tonight? Ene just called and said _that guy_ would be home early, and I kinda don't want to see his face tonight…"

"..." _You're one to talk._

* * *

August 15th, 20xx.

1:41 PM, Kanto Airport.

"We're about to be late! Shintaro, I told you not to bring the rabbit!"

"Brother, hurry up! If you make us miss this flight I'll kick your ass to France myself!"

"I couldn't leave Tono at home! He'd die if he gets too lonely!"

"I know you love the rabbit, but this is one occasion when I don't want to compete with it for your affection and especially since it's France, so…please?"

.

"Let me get this straight: You bought me a first-class ticket to France in one night? That should be a record."

"I have my ways. This time is surprisingly easy, though, since some guy sitting next to me cancelled his flight at the last minute. Besides, you can spare me the headache of babysitting the kids by myself; it's a win-win."

"Auntie, uh…you sounded really shady just now, you know that?"

"You should know better than I do that your aunt is a stone-cold badass. Come on, Hiyori, we're going to be late for our trip!"

.

And in another bustling corner of the airport…

"Eeek!"

"Are you okay, Mary?"

"I…I think I'm fine. I don't know what I tripped on though…"

"It's okay. C'mon, we're about to be late!"

* * *

First Class Lounge, Flight MCA-01 to France.

"You're a total wuss." Ene could barely suppress her laughter. "Wait until I tell the guys back in R&D."

Shintaro nearly walked into a counter, interrupting the death glare he directed at the blue-haired girl. "Make sure to tell them that I actually compromised with my _lovely_ fiancée while you're at it, why won't you?"

Ene pouted childishly. "You're no fun, Shintaro. I was just joking," she continued, which earned her another scornful scowl.

"You made me pour soda on my keyboard once," he retorted. "It took two weeks to get that repaired, and in that time I was pretty much a simpering wreck. Your jokes go out of hand a lot."

They passed through a throng of Italian tourists and reached the terminal. The flight was two minutes away from taking off, but no matter; between an idol and two accomplished slash famous computer programmers, he was sure they could find a way to board the flight ten minutes late. Momo was waving excitedly at the two of them from where she was standing with a bunch of strangers; Ayano was standing with her, and right behind those two was a figure in a black hoodie...

"Shit!" Shintaro exclaimed as he realized just who the mystery person was. "It's him!"

My God. It was the brother.

Make no mistake: Ayano's little brother was a force to be reckoned with. Being three years younger than her, he was darned perceptive and had an overprotective streak a mile wide.

In all honesty, Shintaro didn't know how Ayano could be so sweet and her brother could be so…well, on the other side of the spectrum, but considering his and Momo's contrasting personalities, he really couldn't complain without coming off as a hypocritical jerk. Kano Tateyama had that unfailingly creepy tendency to smile every now and then for no apparent reason, which freaked everybody out except for his all-too-innocent sister.

All Shintaro could get from his background was that he was a Federal Agent, and even then he couldn't believe it. Shintaro would readily admit that he was far too scared of the cat-eye to run a search on him.

"What are you on about now, Shintaro?" Ene asked quizzically, moving her gaze to the blond. "…Whoa. Is that Kano?"

"What the hell is he doing here?" he whispered back frantically. "We haven't even heard from him for years!"

"Coincidence?" Ene shrugged. "He did tell Ayano he had an assignment some five days ago, but I never imagined it would be France. I thought the Bureau's jurisdiction didn't stretch that far."

"That's definitely not it." He narrowed his eyes. Kano was a master liar, he knew, but Shintaro couldn't believe that he was the only one not fooled by the blond's deceitful ways."Whatever he's doing, it's not with the FBI. He didn't flash his ID even once, did you see that?"

He still didn't know what exactly was it that Kano did for a living, but it was nothing good if the latter still had that silver gun he procured out of nowhere three years ago. How the hell had he gotten it past customs, anyway!?

"We don't tell Ayano," Ene finally decided, eyebrows furrowed in concentration. "Kano would never do anything to make her sad, so we have to assume that he could handle his mysterious job…if he had one. Let's just let Kano make his own decisions."

"You're strangely mature today…" Shintaro noted. As if remembering her façade, Ene once again smiled brightly before tripping him.

"Hehehe…that expression of yours is priceless, Shintaro!" she laughed, before quickly approaching the impatient Momo. He stood up, retrieved his luggage and reached the terminal, where Ene and Momo were laughing about the clumsy fall earlier.

It seemed that Kano's lies weren't the only ones Shintaro could see through after all.

* * *

"No way! We're actually in first class, Hibiya!_ Wake! Up! And! Look!_" the girl yelled excitedly, shaking the poor brunette, who looked like he was ready to pass out.

"I'm feeling a little queasy, Hiyori," the boy choked out, gingerly removing her hand from his shoulder. "I'm still slightly carsick."

"Just leave him alone for a while, Hiyori." Kido added, throwing a paper bag in the general direction of the boy. "As long as he doesn't puke all over the place, I'm good."

"Aah, how cruel~" The blond beside her laughed, his eyes still shadowed by the black hoodie he now wore. "I never pegged you as heartless, _Tsubomi-san~_"

She glared back. "I never gave you permission to use my first name, did I? And stop with that voice, you're creepy."

"Hey, now…"

"It's S - I mean, Kano!" a chirpy female voice interrupted from the entrance of the plane. "What are you doing here?"

Kano's eyes widened and his head snapped up at the twenty-something girl with a red scarf. "Ayano-neechan?"

What the…he had a sister?

Ayano looked around three years or so older than him, but she could pass herself off as a senior high student. Her brilliant smile was a stark contrast to the mysterious half-smirk, half-sneer her younger brother sported. She didn't look much like Kano, but Kido shrugged it off as genetics; she herself didn't look much like her old man – what a relief. Behind Ayano, others filed in: a cheerful girl with deep honey-colored hair, laughing at a bickering couple – a blue-haired girl and a guy wearing a red jersey, but she didn't take much notice of them.

"We're not in Japan anymore, Kano." Her eyes snapped back as Ayano smiled sweetly. "We're all boarding a flight to France, aren't we? Are you done with your latest assignment?"

How come a guy like him had such a sweet, innocent and caring older sister? The universe really wasn't fair. Now Kido was rethinking everything he hinted earlier about his troubled past – nobody could ever have a troubled past worthy of revenge and grow up to be this sweet girl.

He'd probably been lying to her since day one, like she'd initially guessed.

"This is my latest assignment, actually." He jabbed a finger at her. "We're going to France to, uh…meet a witness for my case. She's the sister of the witness."

If it wasn't an outright disgusting lie, Kido might have actually believed him. Still, it was clear that he wanted to keep a secret what he really was doing, so she'd play along for now. "Good morning. I'm Kido Tsubomi."

"My name is Ayano Tateyama." Wait, Tateyama? But wasn't Kano's last name…well, Kano? "This is my brother, but I think you already know that. Nice to meet you."

One look at the girl, and every word she was planning to say died in her throat. Kido's blood froze as she looked up at her hair, where the red hairclips were. Those hair clips looked disturbingly familiar; Ayano herself looked like someone Kido knew from a long time ago. And the Tateyama name…

"I'm sorry," she asked in a much smaller voice. "Do you know an Ayaka Tateyama?"

The other two looked at each other strangely for a moment and directed inquisitive glances at her.

"She's…my mother." Ayano admitted in an uncertain voice. "Did you know her?"

"She used to take care of me when I was a kid. She worked for my father for a while, too, though I didn't know much of it. No way." Kido looked at an equally stunned Kano. "You're her son!?"

"Whoa, hey, don't look at me like that," he replied defensively. "I'm adopted. My name is Shuuya Kano, see?"

Oh, right. That certainly cleared everything up. In addition, him glancing at the people behind Ayano surreptitiously before answering didn't help his case one bit.

"Wait," Kido realized. "She died from a freak accident shortly after resigning from the company. Then that revenge plot you were talking about -" With a jab at the back of her neck, Kido's throat clogged up. Ayano, it seemed, was too distracted to notice.

"How'd you know Mrs. Tateyama?" Kano, ever the weasel, demanded in a rather lame attempt to change the subject.

Kido considered letting it go. They still had a week or two in France – she was sure that she could get him to spill something…right? Besides, her throat still hurt and they were creating quite a traffic jam on the plane - some of the curmudgeons in the back weren't quite happy about it.

"Ayano, what's the holdup?" The orange-haired girl from earlier poked her head in and noticed the little group blocking the way. "Oh, hey, Mister - I mean, Kano! Hey, everyone, Kano is really here!"

The bickering couple from earlier approached them, the girl smiling enthusiastically while the male and Kano entered a glaring contest. "Cheshire," he ground out. "Long time."

"You too, hikiNEET." Kano snarked back. "Still using my sister as your personal alarm clock?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." The twintailed girl quickly interrupted; even Kido was starting to tug at the blond's sleeves as a warning. Whatever bad blood these two had, the first-class section of the flight was not the place to settle it. "Shintaro, cool it. You two can battle it out in your own time, not five minutes after the plane is supposed to take off. If you want to fight, do it back home where there are cameras and popcorn for us to eat."

To add to the creepiness factor of it all, the girl _smiled_ at the two of them, and everyone's face turned guarded for a second.

Shintaro, the red jersey guy, was the one to take the brunt impact of her decidedly alarming smile, and quickly headed to his assigned seat with a flourish. Kano still glared at his retreating back, but the glare was interrupted by moments of his eyes flitting to the blue-haired girl. Ayano returned to her seat beside Shintaro; Twintail and the honey-blonde quickly moved to their seats to make way for irritated passengers. Hibiya and Hiyori wisely chose not to make a move and fidgeted nervously, exchanging hushed whispers.

Kido gripped Kano's sleeves tightly, a little freaked out by the tension palpable in the air, and none of them relaxed even as the entrance closed and the whirring roar of the engine broke the suffocating silence.

God, if this was Kano's version of 'Meet the Family', then for once Kido was willing to admit that her family was actually _less_ dysfunctional.

_'We sincerely apologize for the delay.'_ A young female voice echoed from the speaker. _'This is flight MCA-01, departing from Kanto, Japan to Paris, France. …bzzz...We hope you enjoy your stay.'_

Kido tried to stifle a sigh – this was going to be a long and excruciating thirteen hours.

.

.

.

* * *

**A/N: Thanks for reading! How did you feel about the pilot? Love it? Hate it? I hope you guys like it...I'm still not very certain about this little one...Anyway, please review! Who knows, it might just motivate me to write more... \shot for shameless xD Next chapter: someone will not leave the plane alive, the disoriented group finds themselves too far from home, and Shintaro might just be drowning in regret. Stay tuned, and remember to leave a review :)**


	2. Heartbeat Apparition

A/N. Thank you all for the reviews, favorites and follows! And those who were the first to review/attract my attention...well, you know who you guys are. I'm not sure if you want me to mention your names here...so, thank you for sticking through all this mess of rambled thinking with me :3 And to all the people who have (and hopefully will continue to) read my little project, thank you all for your attention (and the improvement of my mental health in general...)

A very, very special mention goes out to TVTropes, the site that drives me nearly insane and wastes approx. 15+ hours of my life (because I'm still sane) (don't ever go on that site and hope to stay sane unless you have Ene to blare all kinds of alarms in your ears); SeraSearaSpin, the dedicated beta reader who makes the best comments and douses my document in purple/green highlights xD; Google Drive - speaking of which, I still have to move my subscriptions to my Gmail account...and that random list I read one day, which prompted me to write this one out to begin with.

Disclaimer because it's fun: If I owned KagePro, I'd ask for Pixiv artists' permissions (obviously they'll agree because I hypothetically owned the series) and use their art (with a share for the artists, of course) to print on kagemerch because let's face it, 1) reusing the same CM art sucks and 2) nobody wants towels/socks with Kano's CM art printed on them. That's a fact. Of course none of the above is happening, so there you go.

.

.

.

She had to stifle a gasp at the absolute devastation surrounding them.

"This is nowhere near Paris," the green-haired girl accompanying Kano stated weakly, but her words were lost as everyone else gazed at the badlands.

The furthest thing Momo could see, illuminated by the setting sun, was a radio tower broken in half, creaking back and forth pitifully as the sand-laden winds whipped by.

Skyscrapers, once tall and proud, now stood in desolation and weathered by the same cutting, vicious wind. Some were lucky enough to remain standing, though showing clear signs of disuse and threatening to collapse; others had fallen over completely in a mess of dust and detritus.

The sky glowed faint purple with a hint of an acidic green. Traffic lights blinked in flashes of red and green – never yellow – even if there was no one to use them.

This town smelled like death. Death and destruction, a destroyed semblance of civilization.

"I can't see beyond those hills," a kid's voice stated forlornly behind her – a brunet that looked no more than sixteen squinted at the setting sun. Momo turned her eyes to look at the hills he was pointing out, but all she saw was the blinding sunlight. "Why can't I see?"

"Because no one's eyesight can be that good?" Kano suggested sarcastically. "Especially when you're a midget – ow!"

In a blink of an eye, the blond lost his footing from a clean hit in the stomach by his companion. "He's farsighted, idiot. Don't be insensitive," she deadpanned.

"My hoodie!" Kano wailed pathetically at the state of his now dirt-covered black hoodie. What a drama queen, and so unlike his sweet sister, too. "You ruined it!"

Offhandedly, Momo wondered why Kano was acting so friendly toward that person; it was a sharp contrast to his behavior in family dinners and the like. Almost every time Momo met the blond, he'd been cynical, detached and guarded – well, considering his occupation, it was 'd heard that FBI agents received a multitude of death threats directed at themselves and/or family members, and his behavior towards Ayano always had that hint of apprehension and fierce protection, sometimes even more so than her fiancé.

Seeing him laughing and joking around like this – it was disconcerting, to say the least.

"Don't be dramatic, Cheshire," Ene chided from behind him, scraping dust off her shoelaces with distaste. "Comic relief does not help this moment."

"Not to mention humor is clearly inappropriate when we're still _searching for survivors_, Kano." Now her brother was coming over, too. He looked down contemptuously at Kano, who was still sprawled on the ash-covered ground. "You should be helping us, not admiring the view – not like there's anything to look at. The sooner we are out of this wasteland, the better."

Kano directed a glare in Shintaro's direction, but Momo's idiot brother was right for once. They still had to look for other survivors from the plane crash.

The number of people alive and fighting right now amounted to seven out of a hundred – the odds were not in their favor. Momo shivered to think what would have happened to them, the first-class passengers, if it hadn't been for Ayano's timely warning.

…But how had Ayano known about the crash?

* * *

"Mary?" She heard Seto's voice floating somewhere above. "Mary? Can you hear me?"

She tried to answer 'yes', but the only sound she made was something like a half-whimper. That was enough for Seto to wrap her in a crushing bear hug, whispering little caring phrases to her: 'I thought I'd lost you' warred with 'Thank god you're alive' as she curiously opened her pinkish eyes.

The scenery she was looking at definitely did not belong to her hometown, Paris. Mary looked around, stunned as she took in the ruin and the destruction. What could have happened to destroy this place and wreck it to the wasteland it was now?

"Seto…where are we?"

He heaved a sigh. "I don't know, Mary. The plane crashed. Thanks to another passenger's warning, I managed to get you out in time. I have no idea where this place is."

Now that the initial shock had passed, she was starting to realize there was something disturbingly familiar about this place. The radio tower, once majestic, now broken in half. The hills that lay in perfect symmetry, enough to allow sunlight to break through but concealing the horizon. The flecks of blood that had long dried in the middle of the intersection – blood that was definitely not hers – it all painted a horrifying picture, one that Mary did not want to look at.

"I do," she said quietly, and he looked at her with a start.

~~~~~~yay~squiggles~~~~~~

It didn't take long for Shintaro to find them amid the remains of the plane. He took them to their temporary base, where Seto took care of Mary's injuries with supplies scrounged from the wreck.

At his insistence, she told Shintaro what she knew about the town. Only one of the facts really stuck with the older man: They were all undeniably trapped here.

"Are you sure we can't leave?" Shintaro asked sharply, and the white-haired girl, Mary, shrunk under his harsh gaze.

"Y-Yes…My mother told me," repeated Mary. "This town was isolated after its residents disappeared, so nobody can wander in by accident. Over time, the surrounding areas were deserted, and we were told that there is nothing beyond the hills. You always end up back here no matter where you want to go." She pointed a shaking finger to the distant hills and winced as Seto bandaged the wounds on her arms.

"Seto!" Kano's voice called from afar. "We discovered a first aid kit and some bandages in an abandoned pharmacy – should be enough to last us quite a while."

"Just a moment!" Seto hollered back and continued dressing the girl's wounds. "Go on, Mary."

"Someone tried. He...he walked past the hills and continued for five days and ended up in front of the town gate. He tried for years, but he never got anywhere. We...we are going to end up like that too...aren't we?"

Shintaro jerked back awkwardly as the girl started crying again and Seto had to calm her down. Shintaro really, really didn't know how to deal with crying girls, even Ayano. Especially Ayano. The one time she had cried and he'd accidentally seen it, he'd had bailed in the blink of an eye and proceeded to avoid her like the plague…until her brother was notified of this major insult to his sister and turned Shintaro into a punching bag.

It got better – sort of. Kano was still very much irritated and the feeling was pretty much mutual between the two of them.

"Shintaro? Where are you?" That was surely Ene's voice. She must have returned from her trek up the hills, to confirm Mary's story. "I'm back!"

"We're here!" he absent-mindedly yelled back. "Did you find anything?"

"I didn't." Ene's tone suddenly turned somber. "She was right. There really was nothing beyond the hills. What are we going to do, Shintaro?"

He turned his gaze to the setting sun – time seemed so long here, even if only a few minutes had passed – where sunlight reflected off the grassy hills. It was hard to believe that there was nothing beyond that beautiful light, and even harder to believe that this was it, they would forever stay cooped up in this rubble of a fallen city.

He wouldn't settle for such a future – if he accepted this irrational 'system', the real future would not exist. Ayano had always said that with a knowing smile.

"I don't know," Shintaro mumbled, eyes still fixed on the fading light. "I don't know."

The stunned silence that followed was suffocating.

~~~~~~squiggles~~~~~~~

"Did we find any survivors?" Shintaro asked when they returned to the wreckage that had once the airplane. It'd only been a few hours, but the dust had already settled and the airplane blended right in with the sinister feeling within every inch of the town.

"Thanks to Ayano's warning, most of us in the first-class section got out okay." Momo jogged over to him and pointed at the survivors, huddled in a group. "The rest, well…Seto-san just got back with Mary, and he said there were no survivors. No sign of struggles. All passengers were strapped to their seats with seatbelts. He checked them; it seems like they were poisoned by airline food. It must've been foul play."

"Who survived?"

"Well, there is Kano and his witness – her name is Tsubomi Kido and the kid who's with her, Hibiya Amamiya. He's the best friend of the girl who, you know…" She shifted uncomfortably.

"Got her head bashed in and impaled by one of the steel beams?" Shintaro finished for her,and earned himself a punch in the stomach that made him wheeze.

"You're so mean, brother!" Momo lowered her voice to a whisper so the other two wouldn't hear. "At least have some decorum!"

Ignoring his heavy breathing, his sister continued. "There's also you, me, Ene, Ayano, Mary here and Seto. That's basically it. We're eight people in a city of death…literally. What do we do now, brother?"

Shintaro briefly considered his options. Sharing the predicament that Mary had revealed would create pandemonium among the survivors. No matter what, he had to keep it a secret – not only for his sister's safety, but for the sake of everyone's sanity.

"We find some place to stay for the night," Shintaro finally decided. "And we wait."

* * *

Hibiya still remembered the fear.

"_Estimated time __of arrival__: Five hours." The soothing female voice spoke through the intercom. _

_Many of the passengers around him were asleep…except the guy Hiyori claimed __w__as her aunt's kidnapper. He was faking sleep, of course__;_ _even in the dimmed light Hibiya __noticed_ _the deliberate hand movements, the __twitch__ing of the eyes and ration__ed __breathing that could not __have __come from a sleeping person. _

_Kano was vigilant, ready for a threat any minute_ _- m__uch like Hibiya himself, now that he thought about it, but their motives differ__ed__. He was keeping watch to protect Hiyori, while that guy surely couldn't be keeping watch over Auntie. He almost looked like he was doing it unconsciously from force of habit._

_Hibiya moved his gaze away from the blond and instead focused on the three sitting two rows from him. The blue-haired girl wasn't sleeping; she was tapping furiously in her smartphone, muttering something indistinct that __sounded suspiciously_ _like 'Actor project'. The red-jersey-wearing young man beside her was arguing furiously in hushed whispers, probably about that project of theirs. The red scarf girl, whose name he_'_d_ _overheard as Ayano, was smiling peacefully in her sleep. _

_The first-class section was strangely sparse today – only nine passengers. _

_Hibiya had imagined it to be much more crowded, though some of his expectations were met splendidly. He should probably ask the attendants for another s__erving of __food in case Hiyori got hungry when she woke up, now that he thought about it. _

_T__he almond smell of the_ _airline food was still lingering in the air, making Hibiya's stomach growl - he'd given his portion to Hiyori as soon as the girl asked. Maybe later he should ask for something for himself, too..._

_A subtle movement in the corner caught his eye, and he identified it to be the white-haired girl stirring in her sleep, using her companion's arm as a pillow. The black-haired guy, on the other hand, was carefully turning a – holy crap, was that a diamond ring?_

_After this new discovery, Hibiya quite believed that he_'_d_ _had enough snooping around for one day – he did not need to spy on a nervous dreamer planning to _propose_. Still, the guy definitely had some class if he was flying to France for an engagement…_

_His eyes were threatening to close and his vision was fading. Five hours…probably enough for a decent nap before the hustle and bustle __of_ _the field trip__._

_The next thing he knew, Ayano's shrill scream shattered the silence._

_He was one of the first to react. The twin-tailed girl and red-jersey guy jolted in shock, eyes cleared of all signs of exhaustion. The faux-asleep Kano was the next one to open his eyes, shaking a still annoyed Aunt Kido awake. The soon-to-be-engaged couple turned around __in __alarm to see what the commotion was_ _all about__. And curse it all, Hiyori, the heavy sleeper, only turned and muttered something indistinctly in her trance._

"_Run!" Ayano shrieked. "Everybody, run! The plane is about to crash!"_

_The rest of what transpired was a blur __to him__, but the only thing burned into his mind was Hiyori's half-awake figure amidst the rioting, the screams and pandemonium. He tried to tell her to no avail, he made to carry her but his arms were nowhere strong enough; and Hibiya was swept along with the crowd of rioting people, his hand separated from Hiyori's._

"_No, no, no!" His scream mixed with Auntie's as both of them str__o__ve to weave through the crowd, but it __was_ _already too late._

_In a corner of his eye, he saw Kano grab Auntie's hand and jump out of the open door; the orange-haired girl, Momo, pulled him away from the falling plane, and everything faded to black as they hit the ground._

He swept his gaze across the barren landscape with bewildered eyes. There wasn't much of anything, save for the silhouette of a small city a mile or two away, but the only thing that stood out in this wasteland was the airplane itself. The letters _MCA-01_ at the sides had all but peeled off the dirt-caked plane. Thick, black smoke billowed out from the pilot's cabin, and the majestic wings were completely destroyed.

There were hushed whispers as the living scoured the plane for survivors.

"Oh god, _why_?"

"Guys…you should see this."

"Horrible…"

"Someone get the kid away from here –"

Maybe they were talking about him. Maybe they were talking about someone who'd survived. He didn't care.

"Kano, keep Kido and the kid company." His ears perked up at Aunt Kido's name. "They can't see this. Not yet."

_See what?_ Hibiya wanted to scream, but the sinking feeling in his stomach was already confirmation enough for his fear.

Hiyori. _Hiyori._

Mournful whispers, voices full of hope, grim expressions, tearful faces blended together, but he had all but lost the will to care.

"_Where's my niece?_" A voice different from the rest arose, and with a start Hibiya realized it was Aunt Kido. Unlike him, she hadn't seen Hiyori still asleep as the plane crashed. She didn't know.

Oh god, what would happen when she knew?

"Did you find Hiyori?"

_No, Auntie,_ he wanted to scream. _They're right. You mustn't see this. Someone stop her_.

No voice, even one cracked and distressed, came from him, and he was left stunned as Mister Kano tried to restrain the desperate woman. "Let me go, freak! They found my niece, I heard them! _Let me go!"_

She slapped him, hard, struggling to break free, but the blond persisted. The humor had all but drained from his usually amused expression, and there was nothing left but anguish as he leaned down and whispered something into her ear. Her eyes widened for a fraction of a second before she collapsed in his hold and burst into tears.

"I told you not to tell her!" the black-haired man in the red jersey yelled. "We needed to keep everyone as calm as possible, and now you've gone ahead and told her that her niece is –"

"For god's sake, _shut up_, the two of you!" the twin-tailed girl screamed, tears running down her cheeks. Somehow, looking at Auntie reduced to a shaking figure on the floor with Kano's unreadable eyes hanging over her, the red-jersey's shouting and the blue girl's crying while she tried to form coherent words in tears…his own eyes were starting to prickle and he bit away a choked sob – no, this was no time for breakdowns and regrets. Hiyori would want her Auntie to not grieve over her, especially in such a situation.

His legs automatically walked him to the group, his eyes unblinking and frozen to stop the traitorous tears that were threatening to fall. Hibiya paid the adults no notice as he knelt down by the distraught woman, and she clung to him like a lifeline.

* * *

"You know, I wish we were in France right now."

Kano and Kido were sitting in the lounge of a luxurious five-star hotel…or as luxurious of a hotel as could be found in an abandoned town.

The arras on the wall had clearly seen better days; the only lighting available was from the dim flashlights of their phones, but even then Kido could see the expensive chandeliers and fancy tableware that lay haphazardly around the hall. This hotel looked like one her father would choose as the setting of his Casino Night – ostentatious and furnished and overall just plain tasteless.

The long years she'd spent with her distant family had created a sort of revulsion for anything related to the wealthy; and that was precisely the reason why Kido lived as far away from them as possible, always making sure to take care of herself. Over time, those sort of survival skills joined her skill set, and she was sure that even in this wasteland of the universe, she would be able to manage.

They were alone – most of the rest of the survivors had gone to search the plane, telling her outright she needed to calm her nerves; Hibiya had left to get his wounds treated, and both Kido and Kano had shrugged their injuries off to prioritize the teenage boy. It didn't matter that her arm was throbbing with pain and her eyes were puffy and red; Hibiya was her priority.

"Why? Because France didn't have an aura of impending doom?" she absent-mindedly returned.

"Are you kidding? Every city in the world has something that can potentially kill you in ten seconds flat. No, I was thinking that after the whole takedown with your father and your sister, maybe I would've had enough time to squeeze a date in."

Wow. He was actually hitting on her, after he pointed a gun to her head the day before. Worse, if Kido didn't know he was a consummate liar and professional felon, she might have actually considered it. "I never pegged you for insane."

"I never pegged you for a frilly dress type of person either, but it looks like we were both proven wrong."

"_You went through my stuff!?_"

He was actively begging for death, now. Her suitcase pretty much carried enough evidence to put her away for a minimum of five years – files on illegal business dealings, a few ledgers here and there and recordings of…less than appropriate behaviors of several prominent faces of the business world. Of course Kido had a failsafe, but she never thought that anyone would be able to open it, much less access her files. To think that someone actually did…

"Your suitcase hit me on the head while I was searching the plane." Kano shrugged noncommittally, as if he got big, bulky objects braining him on a daily basis. "I just saw the dress by accident. So, did you actually bring that along on a field trip with your niece, her boyfriend and your tag-along kidnapper?"

"I refuse to answer that question," Kido stubbornly replied.

The conversation lapsed into uncomfortable silence.

"…So…frilly dress. Really? Besides, that dress looks like it'd fit a ten-year-old, so unless you brought it for the midget, uh –"

Well, it's not like there ever was anything to hide – people just knew better to ask her about this one. Apparently this probing, suicidal idiot had to be an exception.

Still, that also meant that her suspicion towards him was rising rapidly – this person had cracked one of the top of the line, bulletproof, heatproof locks, the kind of lock that maybe only Hibiya, with his incredible sense of hearing, could open; because there was no way her suitcase would spring open just because it hit some moron's thick skull.

He saw the dress that was supposed to be safe in a hidden compartment concealed by a bunch of other aimless everyday objects. Kano might be all smiles and fun now, but when it came to life or death matters she mustn't forget that they were the same type. They were survivors, and they certainly would never jump into the fire to save the other.

Fine – if he wanted to know, she would tell him. "That was something I used to wear when I was a kid." It was just a glimpse into her past, after all, one she didn't really care to remember anymore. Somehow, even though there was nothing good about that past, she still brought it along. "I keep it as a reminder."

"Of what?" Kano asked as he scrutinized some of the blackened marks; even now, it was as if that pungent smell of smoke was still clinging onto the burnt fabric, reminding her of those flames.

"Of what a scumbag my dad is, what his family did to me, you name it. Every time I see the burn marks, I get the urge to throw it away." Kido laughed a little bitterly. "I never did, as you can see."

"You tried to throw that dress in a fire? That's rather cruel." Kano's laugh was tinged with a hint of uneasiness as he started to understand exactly what it meant.

"Wrong. My dad tried to trap _me_ in a fire. I barely escaped with my life."

His face contorted into something akin to fear – well, she'd seen that before. At least he dealt with it better than some of the others she'd confided in, like Hiyori. Hiyori had cried nonstop for fifteen minutes when she saw the burns splattered on Kido's back, and for a few days after that she'd treated Kido like a glass cannon ready to explode; it took a while for her to return back to normal.

She didn't want to know her sister's reaction when she heard about this – best case scenario, she would have to deal with another Hiyori situation; worst case scenario, her sister would break down and book the next flight back home to disown her dad. As long as the old man still had some love for his legitimate daughter, Kido wouldn't want to see that happen.

"You're crying again,"he informed her. "Was it that traumatic?"

"No…I was thinking of Hiyori, actually. I –"

"Tell me about her."

"What?" she asked, silently praying that her voice would not be too cracked.

"Tell me about your niece," Kano repeated. "And I'll tell you about my revenge plot in return. How about it?"

"...Must_ everything_ be deals to you?"

Hiyori...she was the lifeline Kido clung to when her half-sister was away and couldn't protect her from the family's scathing remarks.

The moment she'd realized that there was another person who didn't consider her a nuisance in the family, she had immediately assigned the girl her personal assistant, no questions 'd promised Hiyori a full-time job when she graduated high school, a part-time job that could excuse her from school once in a while, an acceptable salary for said job, the whole nine – all to keep her from loneliness – and the girl easily agreed.

Over time, she'd become a staple in Kido's life. Her antics kept dragging Kido along, and in some ways her workload was nearly doubled in the presence of Hiyori – but she didn't mind. She'd pay any price to have the bubbly girl around to cheer her up everyday.

Somehow, even when tears were prickling in a corner of her eyes, her voice was strangely clear. "Hiyori...I don't even know where to _start_."

* * *

The only source of light he had was his computer; the electricity generator in the town had been shut down. Shintaro should've expected this, what with the desolation around them; the hospital room had been hastily cleaned to accommodate its only occupant, Ayano, so it still looked a little bit grimy. In addition to the noxious, metallic air outside, the scent of antiseptic was overwhelming his sense of smell. Worst of all, there was a ridiculously irritating girl right next to him who couldn't seem to comprehend the meaning of 'peace and quiet'.

Overall, a wonderful day.

"We can't get out of here, can we?" Ene sighed dramatically. "Aah, how can such a strange fairytale exist in real life?"

"Don't ask me." Shintaro spared her a brief glance at her and returned to his work. "Go bother Mary or do your work."

Now that he had time without interruption, he might as well be working on «Actor». Somehow those strange codes kept popping up in her system, and nothing he tried so far had been able to delete them. Maybe when he went back home – _if_ he could go back home – old man Kenjirou could give him some hints, if he wasn't too busy glaring daggers at his daughter's 'insensitive fiancé'.

The Tateyamas, unsurprisingly, were a tad bit too overprotective to be called normal.

"My phone doesn't work here." Ene's annoying chatter rose again. "What about yours, Shintaro?"

"Signal's out," he curtly replied, eyes not leaving the dimly illuminated screen. "We've completely lost contact with the outside world, hence why I told you to fix the radio tower. Hopefully it will restore our phones' normal functions."

"Ehh, but no one's here yet, so I can't really set out there, can I? Also, now that I really look at you, you look like death, Shintaro. You can't just stand by Ayano-chan's bedside forever – go take a walk somewhere. She is just unconscious from the impact of the crash - she'll wake up eventually," Ene continued cheerfully, and deflated when Shintaro made no move to follow her advice. "At least get a chair. I feel tired just looking at you."

"I feel comfortable by myself," he retorted. "If you're bored, work on the defense system you're developing, that'll kill some time. Speaking of which, how's your project going?"

"Eh, «KOS» is proceeding as expected. You needn't worry about me, you know? I can totally take care of myself!" He didn't even remember what that name stood for anymore, but essentially that project - affably dubbed «Kuroha» for no good reason - was Actor's counterpart.

Actor was able to hack any computer if provided access, while Kuroha could just corrupt all data and be done with it. Personally, he thought it was too much of a blunt instrument, too crass. Kenjirou didn't share the same sentiment; it had taken Shintaro a while to recover the Actor project under the old man's nose.

"Sure." He turned back to Ene and said a little bit tiredly, "Don't forget that we have to rally some of them to fix the electricity in the afternoon. You can go with the rest and head for the radio tower to see if we can repair it."

"What about the kid? You know, the brooding brunet? Isn't he a tad bit too young for all this?"

"He's farsighted, right? He can follow the radio tower crew with you. I hate to say it, but Kano would know what to do with him. You just need to deal with the technical problems and let him handle the rest."

"Yessir!" Ene cheerfully replied and turned on her heels, closing the door with a soft click, and the messy, barely lit hospital room was quiet again.

Ayano was still unconscious from a particularly bad blow in the head, but Seto had said that she would be fine – who would have known the big guy was actually a doctor? If nothing else, Shintaro was immensely glad that she was alive, because he had seen what the green-haired girl became when she learned her niece was dead. He dreaded to think that he would end up like her, broken and isolated and plagued with regret.

"_Hey, Shintaro, will you be coming home tonight?" Ayano was calling him today, too, all smiles and rainbows in her voice - a complete opposite to what Shintaro was feeling. "I just went shopping and restocked your sodas for you. Also, I hope you don't mind, but I kind of made a lot of food for today; there are some of your favorites…"_

_She went on and on, but Shintaro didn't reply. He didn't even listen - he just put the phone on speaker, drowning out her words with the rhythmic clacking of nails hitting the keyboard. _

_Sometimes he wished she didn't bother him so much - yes, she was a precious person to him, but she could be so clingy at times, always apprehensive as if it were her last day to be with him. She was so fearful, indecisive and naive, and maybe that was why she annoyed him so much, no matter how much he loved her._

"_Shintaro? Shintaro, are you listening?" said Ayano in a somewhat bewildered tone. Shintaro snapped out of his thoughts and turned to the phone - she'd noticed his lack of attention, it seemed. _

"_Yes, I'm here." He said without meaning it, as right at that moment another error popped up in one of his codings. Shintaro let out a minute sigh. "Listen, I'm a little busy right now. Just leave dinner in the fridge like usual. Thanks for restocking my supplies. I love you. Don't wait up, okay?"_

"_Wait, Shinta -"_

Shintaro didn't know why that particular memory, from seemingly weeks ago, popped up in his mind, but he remembered how it ended. Just like that, he had hung up. He had come home at two in the morning, found his dinner carefully wrapped in the fridge and left it there. It had been 2 A.M after all, and after a horrible day at work he hadn't wanted anything to eat anymore. He had felt a little guilty, but the feeling had gone as soon as it had come.

And now the only thing he wished was to hear her voice once more. He didn't care what she talked about - dinner, her kindergarten class, what she ate for breakfast, anything. He didn't care if she was apprehensive or clingy; he just wanted to hear her say something.

He just wanted to let her know that he loved her.

Shintaro just wanted her to open her eyes. He wouldn't be able to live with the knowledge that Ayano would never know how much she meant to him.

Even thinking about it was difficult, Shintaro thought to himself as he swallowed a lump in his throat. He should probably get back to his work on Actor before Ayano woke up and their escape plan was commenced.

"Five 64-bit systems for full operation is too much…she has to be stealthy to fulfill her purpose…" he murmured softly as his hands flew on the keyboard, adding codes one after another and eventually, the completed design of «Actor» appeared on the screen. She slowly opened her eyes, a dull, emotionless red, and all windows Shintaro were working on disappeared from the screen.

"What the –"

"«Extermination Program» _activated_." Actor's unnaturally digitized voice spoke from the laptop. "_Commence: No.0."_

The hospital exploded.

* * *

A/N: No, Hiyori isn't a bitch. I figure that since I elevated their ages, I have to elevate their maturity somehow (though you'll probably see them acting teenager-like sometimes since my flow of thought is broken) and Hiyori's dead, so it doesn't matter anyway. In other news, I'm entirely unapologetic about the shameless plugging of my OTP (three guesses as to what it is), and the squiggles. Oh, and that cliffhanger at the end.

Second A/N: I like to think that my first chapter is something like the Mekakushi Code episode - the 'okay, we have a premise, but what now?' chapter. Throw that premise outta the window, guys, because whatever you guys knew in the first chapter will have little to do with what's going on next. I'd like to thank the academy.

Ooh, I can't believe I forgot the preview. Next chapter, the gang gets a slight reprieve; ~yellow eyes~; and you gotta wonder if Hibiya is extremely unlucky or if he is a cosmic plaything.

Stay tuned, and don't forget to leave a review!


	3. Hopscotch Escapist

A/N: Okay, I prefer not to have an author's note at the beginning, but I feel compelled to ask: please, please, if you like my story and want to see more, or if you just want to point out my mistakes, _please_ leave me a review to tell me what you think.

I may sound obnoxious, but it's really disheartening to see my hard work go relatively unnoticed compared to some others that had a flash popularity with around 20-ish reviews overnight. I love this little project, but these past six weeks I've been tempted to delete this story at least three times. This is not an exaggeration - just ask my main beta reader. It's thanks to her and my supporters that I've hold off the urge. Who's to say that next time I won't get depressed, lonely or frustrated? SeraSearaSpin might not reply to my rants in time; my work (since I'm applying to college) might get overwhelming, and I might feel so lonely that I would think it's better off deleting this story. And at this rate, it's very likely to happen.

So, please, if you have time, and you want to see how it happens and who the bad guy is or how it ends, please leave a review and let me know I'm not alone. Let me know that you've passed by, whether you liked this or not.

* * *

Chapter 3. Hopscotch Escapist.

.

.

.

"Ayano? _Ayano_!"

"Shintaro! Don't, it's too dangerous!"

"_Let go of me_! I have to find Ayano!"

* * *

Kido nearly stumbled into Kisaragi Momo as she hurried through the doors.

"How is he?"

The little sister winced a bit and spoke in a somber tone. "I don't know. Seto said the broken glass slashed his arms all over and got in his bloodstream. He'll live, but he won't be moving for a while."

"Forget him, what about Ayano-nee!?" Kano interrupted.

"Ayano was relatively safe – brother shielded her from the brunt of the impact – but she has showed no sign of waking up. Mary said we should be patient, but still…"

She squinted through the glass and winced a little at the fluorescent lights.

With Shintaro unconscious and in need of medical attention, Ene had formed a crew to fix the electricity in this town. She claimed that the first priority should be survival, and then they could worry about getting out. Kido was a bit worried, but there was little she could do about his predicament. Seto was in charge of healing Shintaro. Hibiya and the younger Kisaragi stayed to help him out, and the rest of them headed out to the electricity generator in a nook of the town. Surprisingly, Mary was far more knowledgeable about this town than she'd originally claimed to be. She guided them through shortcuts and narrow alleys, reaching the generator in no time at all. Ene could easily handle the rest from there.

"How did the explosion happen?" Hibiya asked sharply, snatching a roll of gauze to bandage his new injuries from the explosion. "There was no way a building could be blown up like that naturally. Someone must have planted explosives in the hospital."

"We don't know yet, actually." Ene answered uneasily. "I was looking for your room when it happened. All I heard was a massive explosion in the East Wing, and I was lucky enough to get away from the falling building. Maybe we can ask Shintaro when he wakes up."

"Don't bother." Kano butted in - Kido hadn't even known he was standing there. "You saw how he was like when he thought Ayano-neechan was still inside – he was beside himself. We have to wait for him to calm down a little first."

There were some murmurs of assent among the group. One by one they left the now brightened but still messy hospital room, leaving Shintaro and Ayano to recuperate. Ene was the last to leave, glancing back wistfully for just a moment before flicking off the light switch.

A black shadow stood silently, golden eyes gleaming as the door closed.

* * *

"You are the little sister, yes?" Mary half-mumbled, which seemed to have startled the orange-haired girl. She didn't mean to, really, but somehow people always were shocked when she said anything.

"Eeh…yes, I'm Momo. Kisaragi. Ah, I mean –"

"Hehehe." Mary chuckled, which seemed to make the girl somewhat more relaxed. "I'm Mary Kozakura. Nice to meet you!"

"Can I call you Mary-chan?"

"S-sure!" she hastily answered. "No one's called me that before, though…I've lived in France nearly all my life, so…I was really surprised to hear people address each other like that, you see."

"Really? Your last name is of Japanese origin, though..."

"It's from my mother's side," she recounted. "My mother was half-Japanese. She moved from a small town to France when I was young. After my father died, she raised me by herself and I took her last name."

"I'm..." Momo shifted uncomfortably, and Mary realized she shouldn't have said that. She had unconsciously put a damper in the conversation, as always. "I'm...sorry to hear that."

"It's okay," she said swiftly and changed the subject as quickly as possible. "How about you, Momo...chan?" It still felt a little strange to be using the honorific, but she could get used to it.

The orange-haired girl smiled a little wistfully before finally speaking. "It's...complicated in my family. My brother always shut himself in his room, hence why he's so weak. Whenever Ayano's away for some time - to help with her father's research, you see - I might not see his face for _days_. He's such a shut-in."

Mary couldn't help but notice that the orange-haired girl's voice was a blend of affection and resentment. "He...what does he do, usually? Uh...when he shuts himself in his room, I mean."

"I don't really know." Momo sighed. "It's got something to do with military-based technology, that's all I know. «Actor», that's what he called it."

"Anyone talking about «Actor»?" A whirlwind of blue appeared before her eyes, and the other Kisaragi's cheerful face was by her side the next second. "Shintaro never shuts up about that one."

If she remembered correctly, Ene was Shintaro's coworker, right? Maybe she knew something about this. "What does the program do, En – Kisaragi-san?"

"Well, it was supposed to be top secret." Ene grinned. "But since you're so cute... «Actor» was just a cybernetic spy, actually. Our aim was to develop an AI that can hack into computers and retrieve vital information without the enemy knowing. The project was going so well until Shintaro found some strange bugs in there. Old man Kenjirou declared her defective and scrapped the project, but Shintaro was so devoted that he went behind the guy's back."

"Her?" Mary noted. "It's a female?"

"Yeah, actually. You know what..." Ene rummaged through her bulky backpack and produced a sleek electric blue laptop. "I have a prototype of her right here. I can show you what she looks like."

The girl on the screen looked vaguely like Ene, Mary noted. She had the same twin tails, though colored black and a lot longer; she wore strange military clothes complete with a gas mask and specialized custom-made headphones, but what Mary found strangest - and most unsettling - were her red eyes. They were dull, emotionless, and she didn't doubt for a moment that this beautiful girl was a computer program.

"Beautiful, isn't she?" Ene said admiringly. "Kenjirou made the original design based on me - everyone knows _I'm_ his favorite protégé, not the jerkass genius." She smirked.

"She's...unique." Mary conceded. "Who is the person standing behind her?"

"Oh, that?" Promptly shutting off the Actor program, Ene moved to the black-clad figure in a corner of the screen. "Good eye, Mary. This is «KOS», or if you fancy the old man's nickname, 'Kuroha'. Don't ask me why - that's probably a name for a game character or something."

"Kuro...ha."

"I designed him." Ene said proudly. "Did you know he used to be all white? Hair, jumper, the whole nine; then Kenjirou went ahead and changed his color scheme to all black. The nerve of that old man!"

"I..." Mary began in a small voice. "I think I prefer him in white." She felt extremely uncomfortable looking in those yellow eyes - if «Actor»'s eyes were dull, Kuroha's eyes were...displeased? Harsh? To her, though, he seemed downright cruel.

Ene opened her mouth to say something, but before she had a chance to, Seto opened the door with a grim-looking face.

"Miss Ene?" He called.

"Yes?" She answered distractedly.

"Shintaro woke up," he informed her, and the blue-haired girl was on her feet in seconds. "He says he wants to talk to you."

* * *

"It's «Actor» , Ene. I saw her, just before the hospital exploded."

"Don't be ridiculous, Shintaro. She was never programmed with anything called 'Extermination Program'."

"Can you look at me in the eye and tell me that those defects we found in «Actor»'s system didn't seem suspicious?"

"..."

"_Commence: No.0. _That's what she told me before the hospital blew up. Assuming she is still programmed to follow a certain order of single-digit numbers…"

"One down..."

"Nine to go."

* * *

"Dinner's ready, everyone!" Momo poked her head in the now-ruined hospital ward and hollered, which made everyone who were occupied with their own work jump up in shock.

"There's actually dinner?" Ene's high-pitched voice rose above the cacophony of inquiries. "Awesome! Er, wait. Did you by any chance cook us dinner, Little Sister?" Her forward motion came to a halt as she realized just what it meant.

Momo's cooking had always been…unusual, to say the least. Ene remembered Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners – the two only occasions the little sister was allowed to cook, and…well, she never quite figured out what was it that she had eaten those nights. Shintaro had looked at it with a repulsed yet dispassionate gaze – he must have been the victim of Momo's cooking too many times to count.

Ene, thank goodness, was mostly spared the horror; she only spent two years with the Kisaragis before moving in with Ayano and her brother in a small apartment three blocks away from her workplace after all, and in those two years Ayano was practically the only one cooking and cleaning. In Ene's defense, amnesia could really screw people up to unfortunate proportions – she had been scared, alone, and despite the younger Kisaragi's cheerfulness there was a nagging that could never leave her mind no matter what she tried. And then there was those days before she'd met them, the strange dreams she'd had...

…Well, that was the past. What was she thinking about…oh, right, Momo's cooking. On Thanksgiving, the little sister had stuffed the turkey with something that tasted suspiciously like _red bean paste_ of all things. Not to mention that half-cooked salmon and strawberry pizza…well, at least the mashed potato was normal. Christmas went up a notch in the strangeness scale – really, someone should tell the little sister that she should never use food coloring. Blue mochi was strange, but acceptable. Green cheese still tasted vaguely like cheese, so that was fine enough as long as Ene could shut her eyes. Black whisky, however, was just overdoing it.

Now that she thought about it, it was totally Kano's fault for gifting Momo three cans of the stuff as a present – the bastard had conveniently been on an assignment in London, and was free to laugh at the lot of them for sporting rainbow-colored tongues. She never got a chance to take revenge on him – one day he would be in Moscow and the next he would be on an airplane to America. It was a wonder that Kano even got home for the holidays.

Well, considering there was Ayano, she was sure that he would drop whatever assignment he had to fly home. It kind of creeped her out a little bit – his clingy and codependent behavior, that was.

"…Ene? Ene, are you listening?" Momo's inquisitive voice dragged her out of her thoughts.

"Oh? Ah, yes." Ene quickly directed a practiced smile at the girl. "Sorry, I spaced out for a moment there. What were you saying, again?"

"Eh, Ene, it's unlike you to space out." Momo smiled back anyway. "I was saying that I'm just the messenger – Kido and the bratty half-pint cooked dinner. Who knew they were such great cooks?"

"Really? They did?" According to Kano, Kido was a businesswoman, and Hibiya was a high school student. Hibiya she could believe, but Kido, well…she always had that scary glance with the fake smile that, frankly, was just unsettling. The only person she ever talked to normally ever since Ene had met her – which was like three or four hours ago – was Kano and Hibiya, and even then she looked really reclusive. It was hard to imagine her as someone who could cook or do that sort of household work.

"Yeah." The other girl nodded as she started walking towards the hall. "She's really good. We didn't have Shintaro to hack the security system of the department store nearby, but good thing Kano brought his gun. I think the two of them made enough to last us quite a few days and more to spare."

"Hag, you're spending a whole lot of time chit-chatting." Hibiya's exasperated face appeared right beside them. "The food is going cold so I thought I would check up on everyone, and look what I found. "

"I told you…" Momo gritted her teeth. "I'm not a hag!"

"Yeah, so you say – urrk!" Amamiya whimpered pathetically at the sucker punch she just swiftly landed on his stomach. That had to hurt – Ene swore she could practically hear the sound of two of his ribs cracking, the poor boy.

"Er, Momo, I think he's gonna puke." Ene wisely interrupted before the girl could do further damage – if it were even possible. "It'll give Mary some grief, don't you think? She worked so hard on cleaning this ward and all."

Sparing a glance at the wheezing brunette, Momo nodded in assent. "Yeah, you have a point, Ene. We should drag this luggage to dinner, or the food will get cold. I'm pretty sure he –" She jerked her head at the boy, who was giving her a spiteful look while looking just a little sickly green, with a smirk. "The brat wouldn't want that to happen."

"I-Itadakimasu!" Mary's timid voice rose in the silence of the hospital ward – long, drawn-out words, as if the owner was just getting used to saying the phrase. "Uh, I'm sorry, Momo-chan just taught me that earlier, and I'm not really –"

"It's okay, Mary." Kido spoke up softly, as opposed to her rather cold exterior. "We are all Japanese, here. It's nice to know that somebody still speaks the language."

"Speaking of the language…" Kano piped up mischievously – honestly, he looked a little bit too suspicious in her opinion. "We've all taken to speaking English for Mary and Seto's sake, right? Do you know any other languages?" He glanced suggestively at Kido, who returned a deeply displeased look at his smirk.

"None of your concern, shut up." She curtly replied.

"I'll tell them anyway. Apparently Kido is functional in three other languages - oww! Stop crushing my foot!"

"…Idiot." Kido sighed but continued nevertheless. "Fine, there's French - just for fun, really. I've only been able to speak a few words. Chinese is somewhat of an obligation, as is English. You have to know English in order to work in international business...is what I say, but mostly I handle the company's crises. You don't know how much trouble my father creates every month for me to clean up."

"Try me." Kano fired back, amused.

"Is this some ploy to get a confession?" The green-haired woman narrowed her eyes dangerously. "I assure you, that wouldn't work. I've got fifteen Feds banging down my doors for a confession, and I'm still here."

"Psh. Those idiots aren't even able to file their archives properly – I wouldn't expect them to be professional. But when you're dealing with me…" The blond's tone held some sort of…familiarity, maybe, or assurance, as if he'd personally gone into the archives of the FBI Headquarters and saw its chaotic state firsthand. "You wouldn't want to mess with me."

"Cool down on the power play, Uncle." Hibiya muttered, still a little green from that hit he suffered from Momo – she shuddered to think what horrible things he might have done to earn her wrath. "If you want to fight that much, get a room. The rest of us are eating here."

"Yeah, enough about you, Cheshire." Ene waved her hands dismissively. It might be just her, but Kano seemed none too pleased about the nickname. "Switch to someone else. How about you, midget? You've been awfully taciturn since the beginning, and lemme tell you that isn't a good way to make friends."

"Ene…" Kano warned in a low voice.

"It's okay." The boy, Hibiya, interrupted him. "Well, I'm an average highschooler, and…that's it, really."

"You can cook…" Mary mumbled wistfully, and immediately everyone trained their gazes on her. "I-I mean…"

"It's not that impressive, really." The brunette hastily continued, saving her from a particularly embarrassing situation. "Hiyori couldn't cook, and since Auntie is away on business a lot I've taken to cooking. It helps pass the time."

"I think it's really admirable." Mary summoned all her courage and smiled; besides her, Seto also seemed to look a bit more relaxed. "You cook really well, Amamiya-kun."

At Hibiya's brilliant blush, Ene probably decided she'd had enough with the cutesy conversation and decided to switch the target, again. "So, Seto, what about you?"

"Me? Uh…I'm Kousuke Seto, nice to meet you. I'm a surgeon, mostly, but I'm thinking of going back to college and get a veterinary degree. I've always liked to work with animals, you see…"

"Come on, big guy, this isn't career day in high school!" Ene pouted. "Don't you have some kind of embarrassing situation? Funny story at work? Anything?"

"No, wait." Momo interrupted with a thoughtful look. "Isn't your first name Kousuke? Why are you asking us to call you by your last name?"

"Well, Kousuke is more of a hassle to pronounce, so I've taken to being called Seto." He answered cheerfully. "Of course I wouldn't mind either way, it's just that Kousuke seems more of a last name now. And as for funny stories and the like…my colleagues are not very fond of taking breaks and telling stories since we're always busy and all. My apologies, Miss Ene."

"My turn!" Kano raised his hand a little bit too enthusiastically. "What's a career day? Anyone knows?"

Kido, Seto and Mary simultaneously shook their heads, leaving the others to gape at them in shock. "Eh, wait…none of you ever went to high school?" Ene nearly yelled at the revelation. "Seriously?"

"Well, I did go to school one month before getting expelled…" Kano shrugged.

Kido, on the other hand, glared. "No, I didn't. Don't ask why."

"Homeschooled," said Seto, and Mary quickly nodded – she was pretty much homeschooled up until college, too.

"You guys are the worst." Ene scowled and grudgingly explained. "Career days are those days when you start to think about your future career with your parents and a counselor. I remember Ayano's career day…the old man was relieved when she decided to be a kindergarten teacher. Shintaro almost thought she wouldn't get accepted by any colleges with her grades, but she sure upped him then."

"And now all she'd ever say when she calls me is how cute those kids are and how that adorable couple from her class started holding hands…" Kano mumbled a little tiredly. "I mean, I'm glad she's happy and all, but I rarely get to call her as it is and I wouldn't want to hear about some kids I don't know the name of, y'know?"

"Speaking of, do my brother and Ayano have anything to eat?" Momo wondered aloud. "And should we leave them alone there?"

"Yeah, you're right." Kido stood up abruptly, startling her for a moment. "There's something wrong with this place. Ene, please see to the security system of this hotel - if we are to spend the night here, I don't want another explosion. Hibiya, Kano, go with her. Seto and Momo can return to the hospital and keep an eye on those two, and Mary and I will take care of sleeping arrangements."

"Yes, ma'am." They chorused, as if she was their leader. Mary's voice was considerably weaker; she was almost tempted to follow Ene's group even if she could do nothing, but it was best to follow the other girl's orders.

One by one, the groups left, and soon enough there was just the two of them, alone and a little bit lost in the vast, dimly lit halls.

* * *

The first thought that greeted him upon entering the double room was how nice it looked compared to the rest of the abandoned hotel. Mary did a really nice job with cleaning.

Now that the fluorescent lights were fixed and the electricity was back on, the whole town looked much less scary. As a result, all of them had moved to the luxurious hotel right next to the hospital. The debris still took some time to navigate around, but it was nothing they couldn't handle.

Each person picked a room for his or herself, and some shared with others: Shintaro, of course, has taken up residence at Ayano's bedside; Momo moved to Ene's room because hers was still full of rubble. Kido demanded her own room, while Hibiya had already considered Kano some sort of role model, much to her unofficial guardian's chagrin. Seto, of course, shared a room with Mary, who had already made the place look more habitable and was currently hanging precariously on a ladder she procured out of nowhere...wait, what?

The ladder wobbled a little dangerously, and Seto instinctively shot out a hand to keep it still. "What are you doing, Mary?"

"Eek!" The girl standing on tiptoe atop the ladder let out a small yelp. "You startled me..."

"Sorry, sorry." He apologized. "Do you need some help with that?"

"Actually, can you get that hammer over the table for me?" She pointed to a small, pocket-sized hammer lying innocuously on a wooden table nearby. "That one."

"Here you go." Seto passed it over, and Mary reached out for the tool, but apparently she'd forgotten that she was standing on a on the top of a creaky ladder. Clumsy as she was, her feet slipped on the step, and the ladder groaned one last time before falling with high velocity toward him, carrying a shrieking Mary with it.

"Mary!" Seto yelled and quickly stepped aside, instinctively pulling Mary to him as he did. They fell flat on the ground as the ladder crashed thunderously right next to them.

"Thank god you're..." He began.

"Watch out!" Someone from the door yelled in an alarmed voice, and Seto looked up just in time toavoid the deadly hammer heading for his face.

"That was a close one," the voice said again, and Seto pinpointed it to be the youngest member of their ragtag group, Hibiya. "What were you doing?"

"I..." Mary squeaked and pointed timidly at the wall. "I thought I saw a glint in the wall when the light was out, so I decided to take a look. I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

The two turned their heads to look at the direction she was pointing at, but Seto couldn't see anything other than the dust-covered wall. Hibiya, on the other hand, raised an eyebrow and squinted to get a better look.

"Huh, you were right," he said, a bit impressed. "There is something that gives off a yellow glint in the wall. It's really tiny, though."

Mary glanced back at the brunette as Seto helped her up and guided her to the posh armchair. "You can see it even in the light?"

He shrugged. "I'm farsighted. It helps sometimes."

"Really? That's so cool! How does it work?"

"Uh..." He recoiled a little at Mary's enthusiastic tone. "They say I'm farsighted, but actually I can see normally. Apparently I have some genetic defect that, when coupled with farsightedness, automatically turns my eyes into a telescope. I can see really far away."

Okay, that was admittedly really awesome. "Quite a condition you have there."

"It's a curse more than anything else, really." Hibiya sighed. "It strains my eyes a lot, although the uncle Kano said I could be a great sniper if I put this 'ability' to good use – he said he brought along a pretty decent gun and some knives that I can use. I wonder how he got them past customs..."

"Oh, I know." Mary suddenly spoke up. "Earlier, he said the gun was made from a durable, heat resistant kind of plastic, and bullets were in the luggage. He said the knives were ceramic, too."

Seeing two flabbergasted looks directed at her, she continued. "Kido-san told me. Apparently she punched him in the gut enough times to make him talk."

Hibiya winced a little, remembering all the times he witnessed Aunt Kido's wrath firsthand. "That sounds like Auntie, all right."

"And that does sound like something Kano would say," Seto agreed. "Even if it's most likely to be a lie he cooked up on the spot."

"What!?"

"Ene talks like you wouldn't believe. Also, Shintaro talked about Kano's weapons while he was stuck on a hospital bed without his laptop." Seto recalled. "He complained a lot about Kano in general. The knives really are ceramic, though I don't know how he got a silver gun through customs. It's not really silver, though - he just went through a lot of trouble to have it custom-made that way."

Hibiya contemplated this for a moment, then probably decided it was not worth it. "Eh, I don't care. He can be a world-class criminal and a professional felon –"

"Actually, I think that's exactly what he is –"

"But he's going to teach me how to use a gun, and he actually convinced Auntie it's a good idea. He's really cool."

Personally, Seto didn't think teaching a seventeen-year-old how to operate a sniper rifle and/or use throwing knives was a terrific idea, but to each their own. Hibiya was a capable boy, and when they were dealing with hostile territory such as this it was good to hone some survival skills.

...On the other hand, he'd really prefer it if Kano and his knives stayed away from Mary. Scared of blood as she was, the sight of dangerous weapons would terrify her. Never mind that she had good aim - her arms always quivered and she always choked up, and in the end she ended up injuring herself. He'd like it if she never had to go through that experience again.

"Anyway, guys..." Hibiya began again, his eyes once again squinted on that indefinite spot on the wall. "Weren't we going to get that key out?"

...Okay, this kid's farsightedness was _definitely_ abnormal.

* * *

Kido felt the need to repeat it again, just to be sure. "You're going to teach the kid how to use a _gun_. As in, a .45 caliber, metal, compact handgun with real bullets and capacity to kill."

Kano's constant smile started to fade a little. "Well, yes. I'd think that after the fifth time you would have gotten the idea."

"And you told him I gave my consent when I _clearly did not._"

"…"

They were on opposite sides of the room, with her glaring daggers at that annoying smirk. As to why she was there...well, Kido had originally planned to have a whole room to herself, but somehow the lighting had gone wonky and she was left in total darkness a few minutes later; and if there was anything she hated more than her dirty old man, it was the dark.

Kido had turned tail and ran straight to the next room, which was supposed to be Mary's...only the white-haired girl had moved a few rooms down the hall to Seto's place. Momo was, to her surprise, rooming with Hibiya, and the two were engaged in a fierce argument last time she checked. Ene was working late at night with Shintaro at the hospital, which left only one person. The cat-eyed kidnapper.

Kido could safely say that Kano was tolerable at his best. He teased her at every occasion – which mostly earned him a couple punches – and he had a look that unfailingly ensured that he was the very picture of shadiness.

Still, tolerance just took a downright turn for the worse when he told her that he was going to teach Hibiya how to use a gun. Hibiya Amamiya was seventeen years old, not an adult and definitely not supposed to get special lessons on sniping people from a criminal - because this guy looked as shady as criminals could ever get.

"No." She flat-out snapped. "Just no."

"You know, that's a little bit hypocritical..." Kano mused. "You first fired a gun when you were twelve; from then on you kept a gun on your person to defend yourself, and now you forbids Hibiya to use one when you're not even his official guardian...did anyone tell you you're a hypocrite?"

"Because it was dangerous!" She shouted back. "I used a gun because I was kidnapped, held ransom and abused left and right, not because I wanted to!"

"And a plane crashed and a hospital exploded, both of which nearly killed him!" He stood up abruptly and paced around the room. "He saw his girlfriend die, he's even more defenseless than that foreigner girl and to top it off _he is diagnosed with depression!_"

The words rang out in suffocating silence, echoing and stunning Kido each time she tried to process it. "...What?"

"We found the meds in his luggage. That's why Ene and some of the others are so careful around him. Some, like you, Mary and Momo don't know - we thought it was for the best. Seto doesn't know, but I think he suspects something."

Her mind went automatically blank.

"I...I can't deal with this right now." Kido blindly took one of the pillows and threw it in the general direction of the blond, drowning out his protests. "I need some time to come to terms with this."

Leaving Kano to sort out his own sleeping arrangements – which was probably going to be the couch – Kido quickly put her tiny earphones on and turned the volume to maximum. The catchy tune roared in her ears, but she was too used to it, too wrapped up in her own turbulent thoughts to pay it any notice.

'_I need some time to come to terms with this'_? Did she actually say that? There was nothing to come to terms with; Hibiya had a condition, she didn't know before and now she knew; it wasn't like there was anything to fuss so much over. Kido was sure Kano shared the same sentiment, since she was the one who kicked his ass to the couch and still remained wide awake two hours after that debacle.

What bothered her the most, probably, was why she didn't know. It was perfectly understandable for Hiyori to not have known, being the bright, cheerful girl she was, but Kido was an adult. She'd had a lot more on her plate than both of them could have imagined; she should've realized it before Kano and his run-on mouth could spoon-feed her the truth. Hell, Hibiya ended up comforting her when her niece died – what did he feel back then?

_I'm sorry, Hiyori._ The thought was bitter in her mind. _I failed you again. _

Hibiya was the only reminder of Hiyori she had left. Nobody had touched the dead girl's belongings, and the pink suitcase stayed on the luggage compartment even as they moved Hiyori's body from the fallen plane – where she went, Kido didn't know, but she hadn't asked anyone about it and no one saw fit to tell her. It would be an insult to Hiyori should she take the girl's suitcase, and Kano would never allow her to go a step in the plane's direction, anyway. She would break down, he assured. She had to let Hiyori go, he said.

But it was too difficult to let go. Harder, even, for Hibiya, a lonely boy whose only light in his life was a dead girl. She might have been devastated, but there was no telling what Hibiya felt. He didn't – couldn't cry when Hiyori died. He had looked pallid and shell-shocked as a ghost, drifting in and out of the harsh reality, and even now he barely smiled anymore.

All of a sudden, she felt grateful for Kano. No matter what his motive, he did make her smile For Hibiya, it was different.

He always saw too much, Hiyori had once said, and he became pessimistic because of it. He no longer had anyone to make him feel happy, and Kido was the last person anyone would expect to pull him along. Still, she had to try. She owed the both of them that.

"Kano?" An indistinct mumble was her only reply. "Cut the crap. I know you're awake."

"Yeah?" His voice replied, clear of all hints of pretense.

"You..." Kido took a deep breath. She was so totally going to regret this. "You're right - he has to be able to protect himself. You have firearms, right? Tomorrow, police station a block from here, bring your weapons. Don't be late."

In the dark, she thought she heard a low chuckle before drifting off to sleep. "Deal."

* * *

**A/N: To sum it up, nothing happened in this chapter in general. Nobody dies, although Shintaro has it pretty bad. Mind, the only reason Ayano isn't shredded is partly because Shintaro shielded her...and partly something else that will be revealed in chapter 4. Oh, and since I'm feeling indulgent...everything goes straight to hell after chapter 4, and it doesn't get better from there. Have fun :)**

**I was planning to put this in a sort of trivia-esque chapter, but in light of the hate towards MCA...from the beginning, I set this story to run for 12 chapters, just like the anime. I set a word limit for each chapter. I had two chapters out of twelve for...um, what do you call it? Padding? Like Jinzou Enemy, Kisaragi Attention or Kagerou Daze. I tried to replicate the anime to see how it would go. I adjusted the pacing a little so that it fit.**

** In the end? It was still rushed. I exceeded my word count for around 3k words (which is 2/3 of a chapter). In the end, my plot was much simpler than KagePro; I didn't need to go deep into character appearances or personalities (since you already had an impression of them anyway), and_ it was still rushed_. **

**Considering the anime had around 23 minutes each episode, if you assume that they make full use of the OP and ED each episode (which is nigh improbable) it would still have been rushed, pacing issues or no. The animation, (sometimes) useless insert song or sub-average storytelling didn't help. Now, I'm convinced that if we ever have a remake of MCA (and considering the size of the fanbase I hope we do) it better be 24 episodes or none at all. A story like KagePro needs to have 16 episodes for plot, the rest for character exploration and development, and a darned good crew to assist Jin. That's what I hope for someday.**

Hmm, next chapter...huh, nothing happens. You get some ShinAya, and some of you might like how I portray Hiyori. Kekeke...

Oh, just a note: _every_ chapter has hints as to who the final antagonist is, and I can promise you this'll be fun. I'm not leaving out anyone, mind you; who knows, it might be Ayano! I will have a good excuse if she is the Big Bad, but I bet some of you will not see it coming. I'd like to thank the academy :P


	4. Interlude-Twilight Dream

A/N: Happy Heat-Haze Day! (well it is August 15th in my country...) I'd like to thank everyone who reviewed, favorited and followed this story. It means a lot to me, I swear, and that kind of encouragement is what motivates me to jump in the mess of my story and try to make some sense out of it. To those who reviewed in paragraphs and/or had questions, I hope I didn't forget to reply to any of you. If I did, just PM me - I'm always open to questions. And who knows...I might accidentally leave some clues in my reply. Although I'm pretty sure I've littered clues in every chapter already...oh well.

To the ShinAya Anon: Yes, that's what I'm calling you. Thank you for your encouragement, although I felt super guilty reading your review (you'll know later). Also, your review also gave me a new fic idea, and I can promise you it'll be ShinAya centric. If you decide to create a FFN account or if you have a AO3 account, come talk to me - I'd love to have someone to bounce my ideas off of xD

* * *

Interlude. Twilight Dream. The day before the flight.

.

.

.

_From: xxx-xxx-xxxx_

'_I have some business to do, so I won't be home tonight. Is that guy home yet? Do you want me to make a call and drag his ass home? _

_...I'm sorry, that was probably insensitive. If you need anything, just give me a call, okay?_

_-Kano'_

Her chocolate eyes skimmed through the black letters, a light smile on her face. Ayano was proud – that little message didn't seem like much, but the fact that her brother actually apologized for being insensitive to Shintaro – willingly – meant a lot to her.

They had always clashed over the years. Shintaro took to calling her brother 'Cheshire', and in return, Shuuya never referred to him by name, instead opting for 'that guy', 'HikiNEET' and a few other rather unflattering choice names.

Now, at least there was progress. She was well on her way to make the two most important people in her life get along.

Ayano hummed a happy tune as she set about making dinner. Hopefully, tonight she would not have to eat alone – these days she had Shuuya for company, but now that he was gone,she might just have to eat dinner alone again.

_I can call him_, a tiny, traitorous voice at the back of her mind whispered. _Shintaro might not come home if I ask him to, but Shuuya definitely will. He_'_d __drop everything to make sure I'm not alone. _

Ayano willed that voice away with a shake of her head; she had promised herself she would never be that selfish again. Shuuya wouldn't just skip dinner at home for some trivial business – whatever he was doing, it had to be huge. Ayano couldn't just tear him away from his work because she didn't want to be alone. She could deal with this.

_After all, since Shintaro le__aves_ _me by myself for so many times, I ha__ve_ _no choice but to deal with it__,_that voice whispered again, and this time Ayano couldn't deny its credibility.

However, it didn't mean that Shintaro didn't care for her. He was not the type to display emotions so openly. Even now, reaching this state, caring so much about another person, especially someone like her, was already a huge feat considering the person he had been. Shintaro didn't need to work so hard – he could remember anything, understand anything he wanted. He was working because he cared about the future – because that future had Ayano in it and he didn't want her to be sad.

_But aren't I sad now? _that voice hissed again, and with a start Ayano realized that the voice was so unlike her own. It was alien, so cold and cruel, and at the same time so –

_Familiar_. Her expression darkened as she finally put a finger on that uneasy feeling she hadwhenever the voice spoke. It was her voice, but the same time, it wasn't...

The kettle shrieked furiously, promptly bringing Ayano back to reality.

"Haaah…" she exhaled in relief. The shrill hiss of boiling water had finally receded, leaving the kitchen in thick, comfortable silence. "It has always been this quiet, huh?"

As she said it, Ayano realized that it was true, for the most part. Shintaro was almost never home – always, always, he was busy with work of all kinds.

There was one time when Shintaro had had to redo a program all over again because of a stray code that had gone haywire. Another time, both Shintaro and Ene were working on backlogged reports that they (predictably) didn't care to do until her father threatened to subject them to two weeks without electronics devices of any kind.

Needless to say, they both obediently filed reports with surprising diligence after that.

She couldn't help but remember how their first anniversary had gone down – Shintaro _forgot_. She did get mad at him and even threw away his soda stock, but it was Ene who delivered the uppercut. She provoked him to the point of making him spill soda on the keyboard, ruined his computer screen, invalidated his key card and threw his actual house key down a storm drain, while explicitly telling Ayano she was not to let him in. Shuuya, too, was not amused by Shintaro's transgressions and…well, Ayano didn't really know what he did, per se.

Whatever it was, Shintaro had begun to pay a lot more attention to her, though it was also the start of a full-blown fight between the two. She really wished they wouldn't fight so much anymore…

"_Akame-iro, sore ga, watashi nara…Dare ka no, mirai o sukueru ka na…"_

The tune of a melancholic-sounding song resounded in the white, cozy kitchen, and Ayano fumbled to pick up her phone – only to have it clatter loudly on the stone floor.

Really…she needed to be more careful. Her dad would be cross with her if she broke another phone, especially after she'd dropped that last one into the sink. In her defense, it had been because Shuuya spooked her – much like he always tended to do, really.

"H-Hello. It's Ayano."

"Hello? Ayano?" It was Shintaro, and his voice was rather tense. How unusual of him to call her, much less at this hour.

"What's the matter, Shintaro? Is it another crowd again?"

"N-No! I told you not to talk about that!" he sputtered, and Ayano giggled a little at his expense – Shintaro really was horrible with crowds. It was one of the more adorable of his various quirks. They had had to go through a great deal of trouble to even get him to go to one of those shounen manga conventions she loved, and Shuuya may or may not have threatened him with his firearm. "Anyway, I was calling to ask…uh, I mean…have you made dinner tonight?"

"I'm just getting started." As she answered, Ayano had already begun to take out some groceries she bought the other day. "Why are you asking, Shintaro?"

"I…" He was unusually nervous and on edge today. How strange. "I know I said you don't have to, but I…I was wondering if you would mind making some more for tonight. No, that's not what I mean, I –"

"Hehehe…" She giggled and reached for an apron. Unfortunately, distraction and her innate clumsiness pretty much meant Ayano's hand slipped; a mountain of wooden chopsticks and spoons and – thankfully plastic – plates rained down on her, making her lose her balance and fall flat on the floor.

"Ayano! What was that sound? Are you okay?" Shintaro's voice came through the speaker, alarmed and definitely worried. "What happened?"

"No, I'm fine, really…" In truth, she was a bit woozy from having those plates falling on her head, but it would pass soon enough. "Some of the plates fell, that's all. Don't worry about me – is someone coming over tonight? Is it Ene?"

"Uh…no." If nothing else, his voice was even more worried, with a definite hint of skittish. "Not Ene. In fact…um, it's just me. I-I've just finished my work, and I think I should come home for a change. If it's inconvenient for you, I won't really mind, but –"

"No, no, it isn't a bother at all!" Ayano quickly interrupted before he felt like backing out. Shintaro tended to keep rethinking his decisions for a really, really long time, and this was too good an opportunity to pass up.

Ayano felt warm inside – first Kano, now Shintaro. They really were trying their best to make some progress, weren't they? "What time would you be home? Ah, what should I cook? I forgot to restock…maybe I can make a really quick trip down the convenience store? Most stores should be closed by now, though…"

"Hey, hey, Ayano!" he said hastily, a little freaked out by her chattering. "No need to be too fancy. It's just dinner, right? I'll be home by seven."

"Okay. See you."

There was a light spring in her step as Ayano (maybe) skipped down the streets, to a convenience store that was thankfully still open. She greeted the shopkeeper with a brighter smile than usual and darted down the aisle, picking out some of Shintaro's favorites. For the first time in who knew how long, he would actually be home for dinner, and it would just be the two of them. And then tomorrow, they would all leave for _Paris_.

Ayano broke out a wide smile despite herself – this was going to be the best day of her life.

* * *

"For the record, I'm entirely not sorry," Kano muttered sullenly as the elevator doors opened with a pleasant _ding_.

"Look, kid," Kido rolled her eyes - he'd nagged her about this for fifteen minutes straight, and not even the headphones could block his constant chatter anymore. "I get that your phone ran out of battery and you had to borrow mine, and it was all well and good until you spent two pages ranting and calling whoever it was some pretty nasty names behind his back because you were jealous. _Grow up._"

"I was not -"

"I'm home!" Kido hollered as she took off her high heels – an eventful day of kidnapping made her feet hurt worse than that time with the sprained ankle, and _that_ was saying something.

"Auntie!" Hiyori immediately ran out, looking perplexed. "I got your text message, but I didn't think – hyaaa! You're the guy who threatened Auntie!"

She pointed an accusing finger at Kano, who shrugged noncommittally as if this all were commonplace to him. Hibiya must have heard her shriek from wherever he was, because soon enough his footsteps were thundering down the hall and he slammed the door open with a crash. "Hiyori! What's – oh."

"Yes, _oh_." The blond bastard, choosing the least convenient time possible to run his smart mouth, commented snidely. "I apologize for sending you home early, Miss Asahina, but we had matters to discuss in private - ow!" With a quick jab of her elbow, Kano wheezed and looked at her a little bit resentfully.

"Your British accent is gaudy," Kido simply answered as Hiyori and Hibiya looked on, a little flabbergasted. "Don't be an ass."

"Oh, fine," Kano rolled his eyes. "Evening. You must be Miss Asahina's tag-along to the city in August 14th, two years ago. Hmm...Amamiya, is it?"

As if his words triggered something, all three of them reacted a little differently. Kido glared at him – really, could this guy please not rattle out her acquaintances' records at the first chance he had? It spooked people to no end, especially children like these two.

True to her expectations, Hibiya instinctively stood face to face with the guy, acting as a human shield between him and Hiyori as said girl took a step back, glancing at him warily.

Great. They hadn't even stepped through the front door, and Kano was already making enemies. It had to be a record somewhere. Offhandedly, Kido thought that this guy would never make it in the business world, but then decided that she just didn't care. The sooner she could get rid of him, the better.

"I _said_, don't be an ass." Kido sighed, massaging her aching forehead. "Hibiya, Hiyori, this is the guy who put a gun to my head earlier. Don't talk," she warned as he opened his mouth, no doubt to make some more snide remarks. "And he's going to help me chaperone you tomorrow on your trip."

"Really? We're actually going? To _Paris_?" All traces of animosity was immediately gone from Hiyori's now-delighted expression. "Awesome! C'mon, Hibiya, let's go pack our stuff!"

"Wait, Hiyori, I –" Whatever the kid was going to say was lost as Hiyori made a beeline upstairs, yanking Hibiya's collar and dragging him with her. Her thundering footsteps faded off in the distance as Kido and that guy were left stunned at what just happened.

"Your niece…" Kano grinned. "She's something, isn't she?"

"…Shut up."

~~~~squiggles~~~~~

"Thank you for the meal." Kano said politely. "It's really good – I haven't eaten home-cooked food lately. Most of the times it's just fast food or something from a convenience store."

"Auntie is quite good at it, isn't she?" Hiyori replied proudly, taking a sip of her orange juice. "She's been living by herself ever since she was fifteen, so that's to be expected. This guy on the other hand…" she pointed at Hibiya with a smirk.

"It's creepy how he's so good at cooking. It's not like his parents ever taught him how to cook, either; he was just able to cook out of the blue. I wish I could be like that…" Hiyori sighed in a theatrical manner, waving her hands about as if she was acting in a drama series.

"I've offered to teach you a lot of times, Hiyori." Kido smirked a little at the pouting girl. "Most of the time you either burned down the kitchen or poured vinegar in the baking soda. Admit it, it's better to let Hibiya do it for you."

"I did not burn down the kitchen, Auntie!" Hiyori retorted in indignation. "The walls were just blackened a little bit, I swear!"

Kido rolled her eyes – it would've been better if that had really been the case. In truth, the walls were covered with soot and the wooden floor had to be replaced. She really didn't want to mention what the food had been reduced to and really, it was not a really pleasant thing to mention in the middle of dinner.

Suddenly, Hibiya snapped his head back and turned in the direction of the kitchen – he must have heard the sound of the timer. "I should probably see to the cupcakes. Do you two want some?"

"No, I'm good." Kido politely shook her head, and Kano shrugged noncommittally. "Save it for tomorrow. We are going to have quite a long field trip, and Hiyori needs to eat, don't you?"

"Yeah." The girl frowned. Seeing Kano's inquisitive look, she explained. "I have a mild hypoglycemia. If I don't have something to eat every two hours, I tend to feel faint or act like a grumpy old lady and snark at everyone, especially that excuse of a punching bag." Hiyori jerked her head at the kitchen door, or more specifically, the boy behind it. Poor kid.

"Like your aunt. I get it," he nodded, smirking, before doubling over because of a sucker punch in the gut. "Ow! You're going to make me puke out everything I just ate!"

"He's right, Auntie!" Hibiya hollered from behind the kitchen door. "Hiyori already made me clean the floor the entire afternoon. I don't want to clean it again."

Kido glanced a bit accusingly at the black-haired girl, who shrugged and smirked at her proudly. Kano just looked confused. "Wait, how did he hear anything we just said?"

"Great hearing," Hiyori explained as she munched on another strawberry. "I don't know if his parents trained him this way or if it was innate, but he can hear a lot of stuff."

"Really?"

"Yup," she nodded. "Of course, the sound of traffic means murder for him, so he wears earphones and earmuffs nearly all the time. The rest of us used to think he was antisocial until we tried to remove his earphones and he nearly collapsed from the noise."

"He loves my karaoke room," Kido continued with a small smile. "Soundproof, has a huge TV, dim lighting, state-of-the-art sound system, connects to the kitchen. Only Hiyori can drag him out of that place, and with a lot of effort on her part, too."

"I heard that," the boy grumbled as he set a tray of freshly-baked cupcakes on the table. "I'm considering moving in. I'm applying for college after all, and you won't believe how noisy roommates can be…Wait, I forgot the cinnamon. Be right back."

"He's such a housewife," Hiyori rolled her eyes as the kid disappeared behind the doors again. "Fussy, likes to rant about nutrition, looks good in a maid outfit. He's girlier than I am."

"It's nice enough that he cares about your health." Kido said a little bit defensively – she'd feel bad if she didn't redeem him in some way.

"Yeah, I know," The girl nodded, glanced around for any sign of the brunette and lowered her voice. "I don't have hypoglycemia, actually – I just want him to keep making sweets for me. I've gotten used to having something to eat every two hours, and the food he makes is really good."

"Got it!" Hibiya returned to the dining room, looking pleased with himself. "Cinnamon. Your favorite."

"Yeah, it is." After a moment of surprise, Hiyori directed one of her rare genuine smiles at him, and the boy blushed bright red. "Thank you, Hibiya."

~~~~~squiggles~~~

"What are you doing at this hour?" Kido's voice sounded from somewhere right behind him, nearly making him drop the porcelain cup.

"Just getting some water," he easily replied in a calm voice. "What about you?"

"Same," she said curtly, reaching for a glass in the upper cupboard.

The next few minutes pass in that sort ofcomfortable nighttime silence that put a damper on all sounds. The kitchen was dim, illuminated only by the faded street lights.

For a girl who lived on her own, Kido was living the dream life – she had the job of an executive officer, she lived in a penthouse in a fourteen-story building that she herself owned. She was certainly not living up to the image of the poor, abused and scarred little girl her records projected.

"What are you thinking about?" Her monotonous voice broke the calming silence.

"That's an easy question. I'm thinking about you, really."

"W-What!?" she nearly yelled, and he didn't need the light to see that her cheeks were getting a little flushed. "Shut up! What the hell are you talking about?" For someone unable to see because of the dim light, she managed to land a karate chop on the back of his neck pretty well.

"Owww…" He massaged his now painfully aching neck. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you like me. Seriously, you're like the textbook definition of a Tsunde – ow! _Put that pan down_! Phew…" He sighed in relief – seriously, she could have maimed him with that…although Kano was pretty sure it was her goal all along.

"Okay, okay, no more jokes." He set his empty cup on the table and sat opposite to her, his expression cast in shadowby the dull light. "We have two weeks to simultaneously keep an eye on the children, find your sister and...uh, _convince _her to cooperate. Provided we can actually succeed, did you ever think about what would happen after that?"

"Oh, my father will rot in jail, I can assure you." Kido paused to take a sip of her water. "I've waited far too long for this. I've made sure that there will be enough incriminating evidence to put him away for life."

"What about you, then?" Kano wanted to know.

"I'll go to jail, of course," she glanced owlishly at him. "What do you think?"

Kido was too confident - like a magician. She had complete faith in her ability to evade the law. She was engaged in a dangerous game of hide and seek, believing that her justice would always prevail. There had to be a reason why she was so sure of herself.

"I think you are a master escapist," he blurted out. "As long as you have time, you will always escape the authorities. No prison will be able to hold you."

And if Kano had learned anything in his two years of incarceration, justice was nothing but an illusion, and she would surely crash and burn just like he had. She'd hurt the people closest to her, just as Kano'd broken Ayano-nee's heart when he had been caught.

Somehow, that knowledge left a bitter taste in his mouth.

"I'd like to see them try."

"How about this for a challenge?" Kano switched back to his taunting voice, one that promised a challenge she would not be able to refuse. "We'll go to France and contact your sister. If the plan fails – and I believe it has a good chance of failing – you'll surrender yourself to the authorities and stay wherever they put you in. Well, if it gets lonely, you can always call me – ow, seriously, stepping on my foot is real mature." He faked his best scorned puppy dog eyes at Kido, who just smirked.

"Okay, that sounds fair. But what if I win?"

"If you somehow escape jail time completely, I'll tell you a little secret," the smile dissipated from his face, and for the first time Kano was truly serious. Kido tensed for a moment. "A ridiculous fairytale, one I've never told anyone before."

"And why would you tell me?" She wanted to know.

"Because even if you are a survivor," he smiled sadly. "This secret will kill you."

* * *

The blindingly bright room was completely silent, save for the constant beeping and clacking sounds of his computer's keys.

"Hey, hey, Shintaro." And just like that, the silence was shattered by Ene's high-pitched, annoying voice. "You got detention again?"

Shintaro heaved out a minute sigh and turned his dull eyes away from the cheery twin-tailed girl. These days Ene had managed to become more annoying – a feat he hadn't believed possible – and she almost never left him alone to his own work anymore.

Forcing (blackmailing) him to eat lunch with colleagues, asking about how his project was going every chance she got, hiding a tiny custom-made spyware on his personal computer – Ene was keeping a closer eye on him than usual, and it was suspicious. There was definitely something wrong.

"No," he finally replied, tired of her trained, inquisitive gaze. "I just feel like it. On the other hand, you're the one who has detention, aren't you?"

Ene pouted – well, it really was her fault, neglecting work and spamming people as a prank. No wonder Kenjirou sentenced her to re-filing the archives. It'd been three weeks, and she'd only been finished with four out of six shelves.

"You don't need to rub it in, Shintaro. Ugh, that old man is so cruel…either way!" she abruptly yelled, startling him. "Whadd'ya mean you feel like it? Do you even know what tomorrow is?"

"Of course I know." Not this again. Wasn't that incident this morning enough? "My anniversary with Ayano. Thanks for booking the tickets." Shintaro offered half-heartedly, still too focused on his work to notice Ene's reddening expression – a grave mistake on his part.

"_Enough_."

Ene growled in an unusually low tone not unlike that of a wolf, and proceeded to dump the red-hot coffee she was holding on his keyboard.

"My key –" He almost yelled in indignation, but Ene's glare immediately shut him up.

"Listen, you useless piece of garbage that doesn't know affection even if it smacks you on your stupid face," she fired off. "I've been _very _helpful. I saved your sorry ass this morning, for one; not to mention calling Ayano and tell her to pack her bags before you spring this surprise on her. That is precisely why _you will not fuck this up_, you hear me?"

"Even if you say so…" Shintaro began.

"Shut it, prissy! Do you realize what exactly you're doing by staying here? What do you think Ayano is doing at home, douchebag? Don't start – she's waiting for _you_! Remember the two weeks you were working on the backlogged reports? Kano was in America. I was stuck with you. Ayano was waiting for _you_, alone, when you were too busy with work and didn't call her back."

Her words gave him pause for a moment. What Ene was saying made sense. Ayano never told him if it bothered him or not, but even Shintaro had to feel a little bit unnerved by how she never told him what was going on. He never knew she was so lonely, and she never told him.

"I…"

"Okay, listen," Ene seemed to calm down a little at his downcast expression. "Okay, you were negligent and an ass and you know it now. It's only six o'clock, and I know for a fact that Kano has some business out of town. She's home alone, and this is your chance to redeem yourself. Don't let her be alone, you hear me?"

She was right. Ene was right all along – he was too insensitive to Ayano. He'd taken her for granted – something he swore he would never do, ever since that hot summer day. A chance to redeem… "Thank you, Ene."

"Man, I wish I have a recorder right now...Much as I appreciate the compliment," she cracked a grin, back to her normal cheery self. "Don't you have a dinner date to go to?"

He nodded, whipping out his phone and pressing the first number on speed dial. The phone beeped, once, twice, and then her voice."H-Hello, it's Ayano."

Shintaro took a deep breath, steeling his resolve, and replied.

"Hello? Ayano?"

* * *

A/N: I've put all the A/Ns on top already...eh. Next chapter: The reprieve is over, and everything will go to hell. Morals in the group start to come crashing down, and gods, Hibiya is really living up to his theme - 'trauma'. Yes, every main character has a theme.

Oh, how about this? The earliest person to guess where I get the themes from (hint: it's from Vocaloid) and tell me (PM, review, doesn't matter) - I'll let you know _everything_. You'll get to read the end weeks/months before everyone else. I'll bounce my ideas for a new project off of you. In short, you'll be roped into being my friend xD and if you (the hypothetical winner) turn out to be a cut-happy beta, all the better.

Another hint since I think I'm being too cryptic - as usual. Ten words. Song lyrics. The song's initials are CF. Let's see who guesses it first...


	5. Hallucination Zero

A/N: It's been a while, hasn't it? (A month... \shot) I actually didn't intend to update today, but this days is kinda...special and complicated at the same time, I guess. Long story short, exactly 6 months ago, me and my best friend acted like the socially awkward idiots we were and have barely spoken a word to each other since. This chapter is dedicated to him - but I know he won't read it. So, if you, by some miracle, read this...I'm sorry for acting like a jerk. I really am. And...I kinda miss you.

That got depressing for a second, didn't it? Don't worry, the chapter's going to be worse. Special mention goes to my trustworthy, funny and all-around incredible beta reader, SeraSearaSpin. Without her, this story might not even have been posted. Best case scenario, I would've deleted it after the second chapter *insert guilty rabbit look*

Disclaimer: I don't own KagePro.

* * *

Chapter 4. Hallucination Zero.

.

.

.

The morning was too quiet, Hibiya thought as he looked up blearily at the dusty ceiling. So peaceful it was annoying.

"Get the _hell_ off of me, you disgusting pervert!" Aunt Kido shrieked from the next room, followed by a string of crashing sounds and colorful curses. Hibiya cringed as the orange-haired Kisaragi – he absolutely refused to call her Momo – snapped awake.

"I thought I was supposed to write his combat ability level there!" she shouted in a trance and dropped back to her makeshift bed, sound asleep again despite the noise from the bickering couple right next to their room.

Well, so much for peace and quiet.

* * *

Shintaro was trying hard not to burst out laughing at this point.

"Excuse me, I think I heard you wrong. He did _what_?"

The raving green-haired woman stopped pacing around and instead settled for squeezing the life out of her paper cup of disgusting hospital coffee. Shintaro had advised her to go out to a convenience store and grab something, but it turned out the horrible quality of coffee here wasn't much different from the kind in her old company.

Really, he'd think that if a member of R&D like him could get decent grub after pulling consecutive all-nighters, corporate bosses should be able to have Italian roast in the morning. Apparently not.

"When I woke up, I swear to god his arm was wrapped around me like I was his stuffed teddy bear or something." Kido ground out. "He was supposed to be sleeping on the damn couch! He's like that kind of cockroach you just can't get rid of without five cans of insect repellent."

"So what did you do?"

"What do you _think_? I kicked him off me and gave him a beating. And then he had the nerve to teach Hibiya about self-defense without me! _We had a deal!_"

A guffaw of laughter escaped him - honestly, he didn't mean to, but she sounded like a child fussing over a toy. However, no one took any notice as the door crashed open and the bright twin-tailed girl bounded in. "Shintaro, you wouldn't believe...oh, hi. You got here first."

Noticing Kido for the first time, her loud voice immediately shut off, replaced by an amused look. "I take it you came here to vent?"

"No, actually I caught her buying coffee in the halls. I tried to walk out of the room and collapsed, so she had to help me up," he volunteered. "She didn't start ranting until about ten minutes ago."

Distracted mid-rant, Kido looked down at the crumpled cup and splashes of coffee on her hand. "Excuse me," she muttered and hastily left, slamming the door as she went.

"Okay," Ene turned back to him, all sunshine and rainbows. "Sheesh, Shin, what were you thinking? You have like a million cuts and scratches and some pretty heavy burns, plus that horrible head wound… Well, you did protect Ayano so I can't say anything about that, but _seriously_!"

His eyes flicked to Ayano's unconscious form for a moment before refocusing on Ene. "Did you find out what happened?"

She sighed, all traces of cheerfulness gone. "That block of C4 was originally in Ayano's room, but it was moved – don't ask me why – somewhere further down the hall, so that you two would be relatively safe from the blast. I think this one is just a ploy to scare us, or maybe even a warning. The next time...we might not be so lucky."

On that happy note, the room descended into silence.

With nothing left to do, Shintaro's eyes moved to Ayano. She was alive, Seto had assured him; she was in little pain, but the shock from that vicious blow on the plane kept her in a coma. Although the doctor did say it was unusual for her to be asleep so long...

"This is why I can't stand being alone with you in a room, Shintaro," Ene complained, interrupting his train of thoughts. "You're way too quiet. Ah, I almost forgot to tell you about this morning - I swear, it's hilarious. What did Kido tell you?"

Shintaro shrugged noncommittally. "Mostly something about Kano's latest fail at rooming with a girl; other than that, not really anything."

"You don't even know the half of it. So we were at the shooting range after breakfast, and then..."

* * *

"I can't believe you're an _idol_. I mean, you don't even look the part."

One of these days, Momo swore to god she would have to shut the brat and his big mouth up permanently. What did he mean, she didn't look the part?

"You're one to talk, small fry," she snorted derisively, making the brunette flinch. "Lemme guess, you're a total country kid. Recently moved to the city to prepare for college, didn't you?"

His shocked expression was plenty enough of an answer. "How –"

"Well..." She held up one finger. "You don't know who I am, which was a major hint. Everybody in the city knows who Kisaragi Momo is."

He snorted.

"Second, your clothes – no offense, but they don't look like anything a seventeen-year-old city boy would wear. Actually, just the fact that you don't know me is enough to make this conclusion." She snickered.

The Amamiya kid bristled slightly, but he couldn't find any words to counterattack – because Momo had totally hit the nail on the head. She felt a sudden sense of accomplishment as the kid struggled to retort, coming up with nothing and spluttering incoherently.

"I –"

"You totally lost, brat." She laughed and ruffled his hair. "Deal with it."

"_Hag_," he faux-coughed, and now Momo really felt like pulverizing the kid.

"Did you say anything?" she growled.

"Oh, no, nothing," Amamiya sneered as he opened the door to their room. "Just a little obser-" The boy stopped dead in his tracks. Momo slammed into him at a high velocity, knocking them both over.

"Hey, what's the big idea?" she complained, massaging her aching nose, but Amamiya didn't seem to listen. His eyes was fixed on the only anomaly in the messy, dust-ridden room – a splash of bright pink at the feet of Hibiya's bunk bed.

"Wow, you like neon pink now? Can you even be more of a girl?" Momo joked lightly, but the boy's face was frozen. No angry rebuttal or childish pout – he just stood still as a statue, looking at what Momo saw as a pink suitcase like it was the sources of his nightmares. She should know – that was the expression he wore when he woke up screaming about forgiveness for minutes on end. "Hibiya? What's wrong?"

"Hiyo..." he mumbled in a shaken voice, his hands clenched into fists.

"What? Hibiya, what's the problem!?"

No answer – she couldn't expect one, anyway. Momo walked towards this peculiar suitcase without looking back at the brunette. She was scared of his eyes – wide open and trying not to tear up. He looked _dead._

The suitcase looked like any other girl's, with jingling keychains and an autographed picture of Momo herself smiling brightly from the side pocket. It must have belonged to that girl called Hiyori…

The suitcase sprung open, and among the mess of fancy clothes and a few romances novels was a piece of paper. Momo could feel her blood turn to ice as she read the only line written on it.

"Hibiya?" Before she knew it, her voice was shaking, too. "I think you need to see this."

He gave no indication that he heard anything she just said, so Momo had no choice but to force herself to stand up and walk back to the door.

She showed him the white piece of paper on her shaking hand. Unable to hold back any longer, tears fell down Hibiya's cheeks, blurring the pink cursive words.

'_Why didn't you save me?'_

* * *

"We're not doing this again, are we?" He sighed a little exasperatedly as they locked eyes from two opposite sides of Ayano's unconscious form. "I mean, I'm totally going into shock because of that stunt you pulled earlier at the shooting range, and not to mention every time you punched me – which was a lot, by the way. Don't get mad at me too."

"As you eloquently noted earlier," she scoffed. "I'm always mad at you. Now shut up."

There was silence for a while, punctuated only by the intermittent beeping of the bulky monitor.

The young woman still showed no sign of waking up, much to Shintaro's concern. Seto and Mary assured him over and over that she would wake up eventually, and it had been only around two days – it certainly seemed longer.

Two days, yet Kido had a feeling it had been a lifetime.

She almost couldn't remember her old life. She wondered what her sister's hair color looked like now – the girl switched from black to brown to honey gold and back to red in a few weeks' time – whether she aced her Economics test or if she and her father were still exchanging quick lines between busy days.

She almost didn't care anymore.

This was her life now. Shintaro and the others hadn't told her anything, per se, but there were always uneasy glances to the hills or awkward diversions of subjects whenever escape was mentioned in any way. She'd already known she couldn't leave this town.

They really shouldn't underestimate her. She was an escape artist, after all – trained to read other people.

She had spent a sleepless night thinking it over the day she noticed Ene and Shintaro point to the hills and look to each other with distressed glances. _'There's nothing beyond there.'_ Ene had muttered, too quietly for anyone but the black-haired man to hear.

Kido couldn't see what Shintaro had replied with his back turned to her, but who had needed to? According to Ene, there was nothing beyond the hills anyway. Her life right now was going to be with these strangers she'd met only days ago.

...And for some reason, Kido found herself regretting that she hadn't boarded that plane sooner, because she was beginning to treasure those past hours with these people she barely knew more than anything in her life.

"Listen, Kano..." She cleared her throat awkwardly, and the latter looked up from his sister's serene expression. "I don't know how long we're going to be here..."

Offhandedly, she wondered if he knew she was lying, from a telltale twitch of her left eye.

"...My point is, we are going to be here for a while, and I'd like things to be as civil as possible. I mean...I know I overreacted," he shot her a dirty look as if to say '_You think?'_ "But it's your fault too. No matter how I look at it, you started this!"

"Fine, okay, I'm sorry," he said in an entirely unapologetic tone. "Go on."

That kind of attitude pissed Kido off to no end, but if she was trying to preach civility, outright violence might not be the preferred choice. "So from now on let's just keep it simple, and we won't have any – _extreme situations_ – like the one this morning. Deal?"

The blond appeared to give it some thought. "Deal."

"You're lying." Kido stated blankly.

"I'm not." He gave her one of those smirks that made her want to knock some of his teeth out. "But you know what they say; deals are made to be broken."

* * *

"Oh, hello, Kido. What are you doing here? If I remember correctly, this is supposed to be Kano's shift. Not that I mind." He remarked – frankly, anyone would be better company than Kano. The green-haired woman just closed the door behind her and sighed.

"It is, but he hates your guts. I'm saying it like it is," she added quickly, as if she thought that would hurt Shintaro's feelings. "He begged me to take this one. Said he would even willingly sleep on the couch tonight."

Kido said that last one with an evident hint of triumph, as if she'd just won a long, grueling battle with an opponent that _for the love of god_ just wouldn't lose. Considering who Kano was, Shintaro would bet his Dead Bullet national ranking that that was definitely the case. "…I see. He told you about our feud, huh?"

"I forced him. As usual."

The next few minutes passed in silence.

Shintaro could honestly say that he didn't know much about this one. His first impression of her was that she must have been something like the President's Undersecretary – impeccable office attire, long green hair tied into a neat bun, and a pair of glasses tended to create that image.

Now that she'd changed out of what she considered 'stuffy, tacky outfit', she looked more like a vandal trying to disguise herself as a common pedestrian. The rolled-up pants leg looked asymmetric and rather quirky, and that hoodie of hers looked like something from a hipster store downtown – of course, Shintaro wouldn't be caught dead telling her that. He didn't have a death wish, unlike Kano.

"W-What did you say you do for a living, again?" he ventured.

"Huh?" His question seemed to have snapped her out of her thoughts. "I'm a professional crisis handler. It's akin to being a PR officer, although my expertise is much more specific and I mostly deal with corporate bosses or political candidates."

"I see…that's – cool, I guess?" he stuttered uncertainly. Even after so many years, Momo was still right – Shintaro's conversational skills were totally trash. The room lapsed back into a thick, uncomfortable silence.

If she expected him to say something, she didn't show it. "I daresay that I'm one of those bastard politicians, too, albeit with decidedly lower coffee standards."

He remembered the cup of coffee she'd crushed the other day and smiled lightly. Yes, that was one of the better moments in their time trapped in this place. He knew there was a reason he liked this one – not only because she put Kano in his place, she also wasn't the typical 'bastard politician'.

From the sound of her story, she didn't seem like a power-hungry manipulative sociopath. It was a refreshing change from the gray world Shintaro despised, and for once he was glad that he'd left it.

The only question left was…

"Why are you telling me this?" he questioned. "You've just known us for a few days. There's no way that you would be able to trust us. Besides, if Kano wasn't lying, he's a cop. If you step a toe out of line, you're it."

"He is?" Kido sounded a bit surprised. Wait, if she was Kano's sort-of-acquaintance-whatever, shouldn't she have known?

At his raised eyebrow, she explained with a sigh. "Ugh, he lied again, didn't he? He told me he wanted to get revenge on my dad. Everyone does anyway, so I didn't suspect him...damn."

"You gotta admit, he's a hell of a liar." He'd been subjected to a series of Kano's lies in the past, none of them good. Some had minor consequences, like a pie-covered front lawn. Others…not so much.

"Yeah, you're right." She laughed easily. "Did you hear him rave about that gun? I even believed him for a moment before I remembered from Chem 101 that silver is too malleable to be used to manufacture guns. Who was he trying to fool?"

"Your nephew seems pretty convinced," Shintaro pointed out.

"Hibiya is from the countryside – I doubt he's seen a gun before. Of course he's going to believe whatever lies Kano feed him, which leaves me to do damage control. I swear, Kano would've have swindled Hibiya out of all his money if I hadn't been there to keep an eye on them. It's a full-time job."

He understood that those words were meant to be resentful, but there wasn't any actual malice in her voice. She'd gotten too used to Kano and his antics to even feel mildly annoyed, and somehow she reminded Shintaro of a mother. God forbid Kano be, well, family material – even the Amamiya kid with his precocious ways would fit the role way better.

Besides, he couldn't imagine Kano in any situation family-related that did not include his sister, and –

"I can't stop yammering…what's in this stuff, anyway?" Shintaro glared at his glass. Now, he was starting to think it wasn't herbal tea after all. Kano had totally lied when he gifted Shintaro the bottle.

"Alcohol." Kido noted dryly. "To be specific, Collins 150. I thought Kano told you we stole this from the convenience store nearby."

One of the strongest drinks ever. No wonder his vision was getting blurrier by the second – damn it, Kano. "You definitely didn't."

She opened her mouth as if to say something, but right at that moment the door opened, cutting off her words. "Kido, can you help me with dinner?" Momo poked her head in and interrupted – rather rudely. After all the talk about his behavior, Momo really couldn't live up to her own words.

"Sure," she agreed, already starting to walk out of the door. As she was about to close the door, as if remembering something, Kido turned around and looked straight at him.

"As to why I'm telling you all this…we're going to stay here for a good long while. It helps to get acquainted with the people you're going to see for the rest of your life, don't you think? …I'll ask someone to bring you your dinner, Shintaro."

He glanced at her face and his suspicions were immediately confirmed. She knew about this town somehow – she knew that there was no escape. But the only way for her to know that was –

"Did Kano –"

The door closed with an unusually deafening slam behind him, and soon enough the only sound left was the constant, mechanical beeping of the machine sustaining Ayano's life.

* * *

"Is it your shift, Miss Kisaragi?" Mary poked her head in and asked the humming blue-haired girl.

"Just Ene will do." She looked up and smiled brightly at the girl. "Don't be so formal. Besides, I'm only a Kisaragi because the family took me in – technically, I'm just Ene."

"O-okay, Ene..." the little girl mumbled. "Do you know where Kano is? Shintaro said his shift should be around now."

"You just missed him, actually." Ene shrugged and pointed to the door. "He just left with Kido arguing about double knots and vanilla something-something from Starbucks. I swear, these two would make an excellent assassin duo if they weren't trying to strangle the other."

"If I hurry now, maybe I'll manage to talk to him before they leave..." the white-haired girl muttered, fidgeting as she pondered. "Ene...should I ask Kano for one of the weapons he has? P-purely for self-defense, I promise!" she hastily added, as if fearing Ene would doubt her motives.

"I don't really know..." Ene trailed off. "We don't actually need to defend ourselves against anything here, though. We haven't run a full scan around the town yet, but I'm 86% sure that the town is completely abandoned except for us. I don't see why you would need to...but if you really want, I'm sure he won't mind. I know the guy – he has a boatload of weapons stashed on his person to begin with. Freaks the rest of us out."

Mary managed a timid smile, a complete contrast to Ene's cheerful one, and stopped dead in her tracks.

Mary's wide-open pink eyes were fixed on something – _someone_ – right behind Ene. She slowly turned around, fearing what she would see –

Golden eyes. Black hair. That person whispered something that made chills run down her spine –

There was a spasm of electricity, and the last thing Ene could see with her blurry eyes was Mary's collapsing figure.

* * *

"What do you mean, Ayano has disappeared? She can't just up and disappear like that!"

"Ene's been tazed?"

"Mary? _Mary_!"

"Where did Momo and Hibiya go?"

Away from the frantic group's shrieks and elevated voices, a shadow stood hidden from sight, staring down at Ayano's unconscious form on the ground.

In the darkness, there was the faintest hint of movement. Terrible, cruel golden eyes narrowed, focusing on the frantic group...

And he _smiled._

* * *

Momo's footsteps rang out on the gravel-covered stone floor as she noticed the little girl curled into a ball beside a door she knew so well – her brother's room.

"How is he dealing with this?" She knelt down and nudged Mary, who replied in a tiny voice.

"He…he was harsh." The girl looked like she was about to cry. "I…I tried my best. I'm sorry I couldn't help more, but he…" Just as Momo touched her shoulder, the white-haired girl burst into tears. "Is it my fault? I'm sorry, _I'm sorry_…"

"Mary!" She quickly let go of the crying little girl and retrieved some tissues left over from her bag. "It's okay. It's not your fault, and that idiotic brother of mine knows it. He's just looking for someone to blame, that's all. Just…uh, stay here, okay? Where's Seto?"

Her brother needed to have his priorities straightened out, damn it. His fiancée was missing, he was still injured, and here he was shouting at a girl he barely knew about things she couldn't control. Nobody but him would even think of blaming Mary for what happened, especially since the poor girl had been knocked out and had been reduced to a simpering wreck out the hall.

If Ayano ever heard about this, Momo hoped she would make him sleep on the welcome mat and have Ene lock his computer for two weeks, and the twin-tailed girl certainly wouldn't complain. What kind of douchebag treated a girl like that?

"He's...uh, he's in there." Mary pointed to the door beside her, from which Momo could hear a fierce argument going on. Shintaro's voice was the loudest, but from the tone of his voice she could tell Seto was far from pleased. "He told me to stay out here and calm down…"

"What do you mean 'Mary has nothing to do with this'?" Shintaro's voice yelled from inside his room and Mary recoiled. "The kidnapper was standing in front of her when it happened! She should have known!"

Seto fired back with an equally scathing remark about Shintaro's inability to ever get off his ass and search for his missing and potentially endangered fiancée; Momo was actually a little scared at the uncharacteristically heated voice of the doctor.

"I'm sorry…" Mary wailed again as the screaming match restarted. "I didn't know, I'm sorry…" She buried her head in her hands and resumed sniffling despondently.

"That's it." Momo stood up abruptly, startling the white-haired girl. "Just wait for me a moment, okay? I'll be out really quickly before you know it!" She patted Mary's head, which seemed to have reassured the girl a little. She was still shaking, albeit a bit less violently now. "I promise I'll make it up for you later!"

Momo slammed the hardwood door open and cracked her knuckles menacingly before going in to join the bloodbath. Her brother would – she swore to her newest limited edition manga – definitely get the ass kicking he had coming. Ayano thought she'd had him reformed, but the moment she disappeared he reverted to his old persona all over again, complete with childish arguments and socially awkward behavior – it was a miracle the brunette had even let him _propose_.

Being the sister who frequently experienced the collateral damage of his intellect, Momo had long given up on getting him to change his ways, and as a result she didn't know why Ayano and Ene even bothered. Now, if it wasn't because Shintaro had gone out of his way again and talked trash to the sweetest girl anyone could ever know, she wouldn't have cared; but it was _Mary_ and _Shintaro_. It was her responsibility to fix this mess.

"Seto. Out." She jabbed a finger to the door where Mary was still weeping silently. "Get your uncharacteristic male pride out of the way and take care of Mary. You know, _your girlfriend_ who is still _blaming herself for this useless screaming match_."

As if he was only remembering about Mary at that moment, Seto's expression turned alarmed and he hightailed for the door. "Me and my dear old brother are going to have a little _chat_."

* * *

Shintaro was in worse shape than the time Ene confiscated his laptop, and that was saying something.

Momo had long left after giving him a thorough beat-up over his insensitive treatment of Mary, which reduced the girl to tears and resulting in her overprotective boyfriend giving him _another _thorough beating. Nobody would've guessed Seto could be so fierce when it came to the white-haired girl.

Anyway, now that all three of them had left and the room had descended into silence once more, Shintaro suddenly found himself wishing they were here instead. Better loud, annoying shouting than silence with only alcohol for company.

He couldn't bear to touch his laptop much less boot up the Actor project, for fear of her voice.

Silence reminded him of those disillusioned days.

_You taught me how to smile._

"_Shintaro Kisaragi, right? Got it! Can I call you Shintaro-kun?"_

"_Wow, full marks! Ehehe…I'm really stupid compared to you…"_

"_Numbers and data aren't the only things that last forever, you know. There are feelings that never go away, too."_

"_I'm right here, Shintaro. I'm not going anywhere, so you have nothing to fear.."_

"You lied, Ayano." He suddenly blurted out - he didn't mean to, but it was true nevertheless. She lied, she kept secrets; she knew something was wrong and yet she boarded this plane anyway.

Once more, Ayano had tried to bear everything on her own, and it backfired so spectacularly.

Shintaro threw the first thing that came to hand, a glass of some untitled wine, to the ground. Listening to it shatter brought him something like relief, and he couldn't care less about the stains on his jersey.

"You brave, _stupid_ little girl..."

Another glass joined the first, and somehow the red stains on the white carpet reminded him of something...blood? The color of a hairclip…? Shintaro narrowed his blurry eyes for a second.

"It isn't my fault, right? You should have left me alone, Mary never looked where she was going, Momo doesn't understand anything, Seto was simply blinded…"

He was saying something strange, even babbling nonsense now. That was what alcohol did to people, but then again he couldn't care less. Those words sounded true to him, that was all.

"Kido is chasing after an illusion and Kano is a liar. Hibiya is a troubled child and Ene is nothing but a psychopath. I…It's not my fault. You said so yourself, Ayano, it's not my fault. I only…"

Shintaro fumbled weakly for his phone, cold and dead under his touch, and tapped an all-too familiar folder he now knew by heart.

How many times exactly had he rewound this over and over again as he put on his headphones and closed himself off?

Ayano's chipper voice filtered through the static. "_Hey, Shintaro. It's me. I know you don't make a habit of checking your voicemail, but the principal let me off early today and I was wondering if you could join me during your break? Call me if you're free. Bye!"_

He never called her back. He ate lunch alone, working on a project that seemed more important at the time, and he returned home at midnight, long after she was asleep.

Three days later, he found out that that day was their first anniversary.

"_Hey, Shintaro. It's me. I know you don't make a habit of checking your voicemail, but the principal let me off early today and I was wondering if you could join me during your break? Call me if you're free. Bye!"_

_I'm sorry, Ayano. It was my fault. I didn't mean to hurt you. If I could have done anything differently, I would have. I'll do anything to make it up to you once we return home; I'll even willingly go to that silly wedding cake tasting you've been pestering me about. I love you._

_So, please…don't leave me._

Shintaro pressed the button over and over again, listening to her canned voice until his phone's battery died – somehow, she felt no longer here, like she would never send him a voicemail again. It was like he would never hear her voice again.

"_Hey, Shintaro. It's me. I know you don't make a habit of checking your voicemail, but the principal let me off early today and I was wondering if you could join me during your break? Call me if you're free. Bye!"_

* * *

Sometimes, he felt like his world had gone to hell and back during these past few days.

His feet kept running on their own, deftly avoiding cement and broken glass of their own accord. He didn't know where he was running.

The hills, maybe?

No, there was nothing beyond the hills. The blue-haired girl was right. They were trapped in a glorified whom…? The so-called rogue Actor project, maybe; maybe it was the yellow-eyed man he'd seen for a split second in Miss Ayano's hospital room just as Ene closed the door.

He didn't know who they both were, but one thing was certain: the yellow-eyed man definitely wasn't human. An automaton or a hologram, it was debatable, but Hibiya was certain he'd never heard a single breath from that man.

He had listened closely as Ayano inhaled and exhaled peacefully – just as a comatose person should – but where there should have been another presence beside her, there had been nothing.

Hibiya's blood turned to ice as he remembered. That smile…the man's smile freaked him out. It never left his mind, and now the man with the yellow eyes and creepy smile had joined the cast of his nightmares, standing next to the cheerful Hiyori as they pushed him down a bottomless cliff; the wind shrieked by his ears, his hair whipping frantically as he fell -

"You are…" Another voice, one he had only heard once on that cursed plane, spoke from seemingly far away. "You are that boy…the one who was with Shuuya…"

Shuuya? Who was...

Hibiya's eyes snapped open - he was on the rooftop of the hotel. The supposedly missing brunette, Ayano, looked back at him from the topmost floor of the opposite building, the hospital where they all were occupying. Her eyes were filled with tears, and her voice cracked. "Please…leave before he…"

And then Hibiya's gaze passed the brunette, past the frantic swaying of her bright red scarf and landed on the shadow standing quietly behind her.

The man, sensing his presence, looked straight at him from a distance of over twenty feet and smiled. That same smile that haunted him, all this time.

"Hello, little boy," he crooned in a mocking tone. "Did you like my note?"

The woman screamed something that was lost in the wind and dust gravel, and all Hibiya remembered was an electric shock that shot white-hot flames up his body as he crumpled on the rooftop and gazed at dull, emotionless red eyes, just for a second –

Red streaked past his face as she fell; a low, mocking laugh blended in with two other strikingly familiar voices, but he could no longer hear it.

"Ene? What happened? Why aren't you resting?"

"Someone go get Shintaro, _now_."

* * *

A/N: The story is actually progressing! Next chapter: Kido needs to stop acting like Ayano, someone is going off the deep end and- *cues Otsukimi Recital beat* yeah. A little. Next chapter is going to be painful though; it doesn't really get better from this point. Have fun!

Thanks for reading my story, and leave a review!


End file.
